


Purisima

by DiazTuna



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: Complete and total matriarchy, F/F, Found Family, Once again I present misandry to you, Practical Magic AU, Witchcraft, maybe a sneaky dash of communism who knows anymore, west coast vibes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-14
Updated: 2020-09-14
Packaged: 2021-03-06 10:28:51
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 9
Words: 53,953
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25968166
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DiazTuna/pseuds/DiazTuna
Summary: The Mills Sisters have always been witches, even as they grew apart. Until a phone call on a Friday night brings them together and something unspeakable happens.Former detective Emma Swan is on their trail.Or a loose Practical Magic AU.
Relationships: Evil Queen | Regina Mills/Emma Swan
Comments: 92
Kudos: 181
Collections: Swan Queen Supernova V: Forever Starstruck





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Purisima [Fanart]](https://archiveofourown.org/works/25747927) by [coffeesometime](https://archiveofourown.org/users/coffeesometime/pseuds/coffeesometime). 
  * Inspired by [Purisima /ArtWork](https://archiveofourown.org/works/26200894) by [alwaysthevillain](https://archiveofourown.org/users/alwaysthevillain/pseuds/alwaysthevillain). 



> Thank you as always to Sweets for putting up with my typos and have finished sentences! To coffeesometime and always the villain who absolutely SPOILED me with their art!! Go check it out!!

It’s Saturday night and the whole second floor smells like mother’s perfume. She and papi are going out to a party in the city where neither she nor her sister are invited. They wouldn’t know how to behave, no matter how much she has tried. Perhaps one day, the belt will finally let the lessons sink in. It’s what mother says every time. 

But Regina and Zelena are allowed to watch her get ready for tonight. Sit on her bed as mother stays at her vanity. Get to watch her line her eyes with black, run the thin end of comb through her hair to part it. Curl her lashes, pluck errant hairs. The lotion that goes on her tanned skin. Papi wanders into the room, a drink in his hand, bow tie still undone. He kisses their foreheads, calls them his ninas lindas. He smells like coffee and the tobacco he only smokes on nights like this. Regina catches her mother narrowing her eyes in the mirror until he leaves. 

“Have I ever told you girls about the gift in our family?”

“No, mother, I don’t think you have.” Zelena answers as she sits straighter. 

Her sister does that, tries to make mother happy. Regina wishes she could be like her. Instead she grasps at the thick cotton duvet because she is afraid of the look in her mother’s eyes. 

“In the old land,” Mother calls it that, that place she swears she will never see again. “When the Spanish still ruled there lived our ancestor. Maria Isabel de Molina, though she only came to add that to her name later. Her father was a Spaniard, her mother an india.” 

It’s rare to hear mother speak like this, pronounce all her r’s. Skip the s’s in the middle of her words. She avoids talking like that, says she doesn’t want people to think they spent their days in the bananeras before she and papi came here. Regina knows better than to point it out, knows it's their place to keep quiet.

“Dear Maria Isabel did as all women are wont to do. She fell in love, and outside her casta too. With a recently arrived peninsular who won her heart with verses and promises of land, a place in society among the best of them,” Mother bites into a kleenex and checks her teeth in the mirror. “And believing in their love, she let herself get pregnant with his child. But when it came to it, he claimed she was a stranger. That he would never sully his name with someone like her.” 

“What did she do?” Her sister asks, sitting by the edge of the mattress. 

“Ah, yes,” She smiles at them through the mirror. “What could she do? Tainted reputation and a bastard on the way? Maria Isabel turned to brujeria, the only thing left to those with nothing.” 

Regina gasps. In her mind Maria Isabel is one with mother. Dark haired, sharp eyed. Skin that she pretends is given by the Sun. Maria Isabel who also lit black candles and pricked her fingers and mumbled things in the dark of night. When she thought no one was watching.

“Is something the matter, Regina?” Mother has her chin in her hand.

Regina shakes her head and holds her breath. 

“Answer me with your words, girl.”

“No, mother.” She knows her voice is shaking. 

“Good.” Mother takes a pencil to her brows. “The problem, she realized, is that she had fallen in love. If she had never loved the peninsular she would have still had her life. So she cast a spell in the dead of night, she asked the spirits to turn her love mortal. To take all of it and forge it into a dagger. Her love took his life.” 

She turns to look at her sister, see if Zelena feels anything like she is feeling. But Regina can’t read her, doesn’t know what she thinks behind those green eyes of hers. Not for the first time she wishes she could curl against her side and hold her hand. They don’t do that, they probably never will. Mother wouldn’t like it.

“Aren’t you going to ask what our gift is?”

“What was the gift, mother?” This time Regina speaks, because her mother has kept an eye on her. 

“Maria Isabel understood that love is weakness, her magic knew that. It’s something she passed to all of us women.” The light makes her teeth look whiter. “Death comes for the man we love. It frees us, keeps us from making all the wrong decisions. It’s how we got so far in this life.”

Regina breathes out in relief. She may be eleven but she knows there will never be a man like el peninsular in her life. She has no interest in boys. Doesn’t think she ever will, not when girls make her stomach flutter. Feel warmth on her cheeks. There will never be a love she could ever lose. For once in her life, Regina feels spared. Que suerte, que suerte, like papi would say. That the gift would skip her and not give her pain. But she has to make sure. Sure that she will be safe from Maria Isabel’s gift. 

Regina waits until they have left for the city. Counts down the minutes until it’s an hour, until she is sure they will not turn around. Not come back for mother’s shawl or papi’s wallet. Not because papi changed his mind and he can’t do tonight after all. She rips out a sheet from her math notebook and sets out to make a spell of her own. Regina gathers rosemary from mother’s garden before heading to the kitchen.

“What’s this?” Zelena asks, her spell held in between her fingers. “Brown and green her eyes will be…”

“Give me that!” Regina tries to snatch the paper away from her but Zelena’s three years older. Three years taller. “Zelena, give it back!”

“Heart as golden as a Summer’s eve,” She smirks so smugly and carries on reading. “She’ll hear my call ring. Regina... is this a love spell?” 

“Shut up!” It hurts to bite into her lip, to keep her eyes from stinging. “It’s none of your business!” 

“Is this because of mother’s story?” Her sister’s eyes soften at that. Just a little. “Or do you _actually_ mean this?” 

“Maybe.” Regina wipes at her eyes. “Why do you care?”

Zelena shrugs and then hands the spell back to her.

“If you want this to work we need to get up on the roof.” She reaches for the secret backdrop where mother keeps her ingredients. “Red thread for the amarre, you got a quarter?”

“Of course I do.” Regina replies, hiding her confusion. “How do _you_ even know this?” 

“What, cara de mono? You thought you were the only one who watched mother?” Her smirk is back. “Come on, or we’ll lose the good light.” 

“I hate you.” 

Her sister throws back her head and laughs. Ruffles her hair and takes a wooden bowl with her. Up the stairs that creak with every misstep, that would give them away if they didn’t know where to step. Up, up. Past their bedrooms, into the attic. Through the skylight. Zelena steadies her as Regina follows behind, until they’re sitting cross-legged and the wind is blowing West.

“Now, say the spell and wrap the thread around your finger four times.” 

“And the quarter?”

“Rub it with the rosemary, obviously.” She rolls her eyes. “Hurry up before I change my mind.” 

Regina glares at her but retrieves the spell from her pocket all the same.

“Brown and green her eyes will be, heart as golden as a Summer’s eve, she’ll hear my call ring and on a stolen chariot will she be coming.” She avoids Zelena’s eyes as she wraps the thread around her index finger and then rubs the rosemary and quarter in between her palms. 

“Can I say something?”

“No.” Her finger throbs from the red tightened around it. 

“Sounds like that girl doesn’t exist, Regina.” She pronounces her name with the soft g, like papi does sometimes. “And besides, it’s not like the gift applies to _girls_ anyway.” 

“That’s the point, tonta.” Her heart beats a little faster as her sister pulls out a lighter from her pocket. “It keeps me safe just in case...”

“Of what?”

“Mother lied to us.” 

Zelena nods and lights one of papi’s cigarettes and Regina pretends to not mind. To not be surprised by her older sister. 

“Oh, sis.” She takes the spell from her hands and crumbles it. Hits her cigarette like she knows what she’s doing and drops the ashes on it. Until it catches fire. “Don’t you get it?”

She doesn’t like when Zelena makes her feel smaller. As if she doesn’t already understand. Like mother didn’t make sure of that. So she huffs out a breath and lies back against the hard tiles of their roof and says nothing. 

“Neither of us is safe.” 

* * *

Papi has them up early on Sunday. He puts his finger to his lips. Quiet, quiet. On the tile, down the stairs. Past the front door. Morning is still blue and Regina yawns as she slips into her rain boots. It’s so early that Zelena doesn’t shake off her shoulder when her head falls against it. The quiet engine in papi’s old Monte Carlo makes it impossible to keep her eyes open. They haven’t asked where they’re going. It doesn’t really matter, Regina supposes. As long as they’re away from mother and their white house atop of a hill.

“Wake up, amores.” Papi says gently as he pulls down his seat for them. 

The light is pink, slowly turning to orange. It’s colder here, wherever here is. A shore that is a lot like Purisima. He hands them both a cafe con leche and a piece of pan dulce. 

“Come sit,” He tells them as he leans back against the hood of his car. “Watch the sunrise with me.” 

Regina sips on her the coffee, feels the bitterness at the back of her mouth. Follows it with a bite to the sugary bread. The Sun arrives, little by little. Red over the water. The sky is more alive than she has ever seen it. She looks at Zelena and wonders if she is feeling anything like she is feeling. If her sister wants to cry and not understand why. Zelena’s eyes are closed and the wind is in her hair. 

“En mi tierra,” Papi begins taking a sip from his coffee. “I used to get up every morning, walk to..I forget the word...the _pier_ to wash my hands and say my prayers. Every morning. I had not learned all the words but I said them all the same.” 

“Papi, will you take us there?” Regina asks. She knows so little about that land, has only seen it through yellowed photos in the albums he keeps in his study. “To your land?”

“Some day, perhaps.” 

“What was it like?” Zelena’s voice sounds so different. Like she doesn’t know how to ask the question. “I don’t remember, I…”

“Of course not. You were so little when we left,” Papi smiles at her. “Bueno, a ver. There are green mountains that line the Sea. The thunderstorms that rage every May. Most people work harder than they should.” 

“What about our family?” Her sister’s chest rises and falls unsteadily. Regina doesn’t understand why. “What are they like?”

He shakes his head and takes a long sigh. 

“They are good when they want to be,” With the light the hint of brown of his skin glows. “They all still live in that same house. I don’t believe they will ever leave it.” 

Zelena nods, without her breathing any easier. 

“How about we go down to the water and pray like I used to?” He sets his coffee on the car and puts a hand on Regina’s shoulder. 

“But we don’t know the words.” Regina says, taking one last bite of her bread. 

“I’ll teach them to you. Vamos.” 

Sand slips from her boots and Regina sinks as they walk. Until they reach the water and papi is rolling up his pants. His sweater. She and Zelena leave their boots behind and dip their feet in the water. Follow after him, wash their hands three times and repeat slowly after him. He laughs after they’re done. 

He laughs as he drives to the city. Buys them waffles. Takes them to listen to street music and never says no to anything they ask. Yes, to the cotton candy. To the book he sees Zelena flipping through. To taking the cable car and stretching out on the grass. To the horse ride Regina hadn’t known she could have. It’s the best day of her life. It’s all Regina can think about when she’s in the back seat with Zelena on their way back to mother and Purisima. It’s all she wants. To have more days like this. More days that don’t have her listening for mother’s footsteps. Where she and Zelena share a soda and don’t fight. Where they can eat as much as they like and they can forget about sounding polite. About their posture and good manners. Quedarse en el sol sin preocuparse. 

Just the three of them. Be happy. He could do it, he could drive them away. Regina wants to know why he doesn’t. Why he doesn’t keep going. Before she can ask him, demand an answer he pulls up to the house. And takes a deep breath before shutting off the engine. He looks at them through the rearview mirror. 

“I love you girls.” He says without smiling. 

“We love you too.” They both whisper back before he steps out of the car. 

Papi is crossing the front lawn, readjusting his sweater when Regina feels Zelena squeezing her hand. For the first time in their life. Suddenly Regina understands, when she sees the green in her sister’s eyes grow darker. They love him. They love him. For waking them up before dawn and giving them today. For the prayer and the song he’d hummed. They love him. A sharp pain pierces her chest, like a dagger. Tearing its way out.

“Zelena…” Regina cries out. 

“Don’t speak,” she replies. “It can’t be. Mother didn’t say... No.”

It happens so quickly. He stops at the front steps, clutches his chest. And then falls back. All the way back onto the grass. 

They don’t get there in time. Not before mother is going down the front steps. Not before she checks for a pulse on his wrist. And she’s shaking her head, eyes hard. So hard on them as they rush to his side. Regina takes his hand and it’s still warm. He can’t be. He can’t be. It can’t be true. Maria Isabel’s gift was supposed to skip her. 

“Papi, please…” Regina feels the tears in her throat. Feels them spill out. 

“You did this.” Mother tells her. “Your weakness took him away.” 

* * *

The house needs a fresh coat of paint, Mother insists it does. What will the neighbors say? It’s all she ever asks. About less than fine clothes. The broken fence. What will they say if they found out they had sold papi’s car? No. They would think less of them if Zelena wore that awful neon green uniform at the ice cream shop. If Regina suddenly dropped violin lessons. It’s been two years of what ifs since papi had died. Since his family had decided to limit their money. 

“Oh, aren’t they so generous?” Mother had said hanging up the phone and nodded her way. “A trust-fund for you, Regina. I suppose they decided to only look after their blood.” 

Zelena eyes had hardened on her and she’d stormed out of the room. Regina hadn’t known, she had no way of knowing. Because their hair is just as dark, the bridge of their nose just the same. The thickness of their brows. But it hadn’t mattered. Anything they might have shared the day papi died had broken then.

“And we can’t sell this damn house because your dear father specified it should go to you and your sister and that it should not be touched until you come of age,” She had kissed her teeth like she rarely did. “He thought of everything, that wretched man.” 

Today the house stinks of fresh paint. Fresh paint they can’t afford. Done by a painter who calls mother Mrs. Mills in a low voice. She barks out orders and complains about the shoddy work. About the skewed lines and the spray of paint on the lawn. Regina has excused herself to her room, claiming to have a book report due Monday. Her notebook is out and for the sake of appearances, a couple of sentences written about a theme. She doesn’t bother with her walkman, not when she needs to listen for mother’s steps. 

Except they never come, the stairs never give her away. Instead she hears another order thrown at the painter and her mother sliding into a different tone. 

“I thought a change was in order.” Her voice is sweet. Polite. “And wouldn’t you agree eggshell is in season again?” 

“I’d say so,” says Mrs... Regina can’t remember her last name. “It’s certainly nice to see you still setting trends, Cora.” 

“You know me.” Mother must have her chin raised. So proud. “Now, what can I do for you?” 

“Actually, I was hoping we could go to your tea room, if that wouldn’t be too much of a bother.” 

Regina decides to reach for her headphones and block it all out. Presses play on the burned CD Marian had given her today. Maybe she reads the same line over and over again. _I’m not living with you, we occupy the same cage!_ Tries to write something clever about it in her pretend book report but she can’t. Not when Mrs. No Last Name is in the tea-room with mother. 

Regina had gone in one night. The word brujeria pounding against her skull. She had to know about the extra three hundred dollars at the end of that month. About mother’s new black dress. What she had found had her feel sick, paralyzed. A jar full of dirt labelled “tierra de muerto”, live scorpions and half-burnt black candles. Patas de cerdo y cuervo. Cards and a chalk drawing on the floor. 

No. She doesn’t want to think about what they might be doing in that tea-room. Regina had burned paper to ashes that night and made a circle around her bed with them. Has stopped getting up for water. Afraid of what might be lurking there. Just outside the tea room. 

Someone grips her shoulder tightly and Regina tries not to flinch. 

“Would it kill you to relax, sis?” Zelena says as she removes her headphones. 

“How did you even get in?” Regina asks, knowing mother locks all the doors in the house when she’s in the tea room. 

“Magic, how else?” She says throwing herself on the bed. “Shouldn’t you be out or something? It’s Friday.” 

“Book report.” Regina lies on instinct. 

“What about your little friend? The one mother doesn’t approve of?” Her sister tosses her pillow up in the air only to catch it again. “You know, the Belizean?”

“ _Marian_ is away for the weekend, visiting family down in LA.” She taps her pen and regards Zelena for a moment. “What do you want?”

“Do I have to want anything?” 

Regina only stares at her. Because her sister, always. Always wants something.

“Fine.” Zelena sits up and rolls her eyes. “Glinda is having a party tonight--” 

“I thought you hated Glinda.” 

“I do. It’s why I have to go to this party,” Her sister laughs. “And I need beer money if I want to get in.” 

“No.” Regina says turning around.

“No seas asi.” Zelena throws a pillow at her. “I’d bring you along if you weren’t such a damn bore.” 

“Liar.” She doesn’t want to go. Doesn’t want to be around Zelena’s not-friends. Around the smoke and the smell of alcohol. “And besides, I’m thirteen, you moron.” 

“Whatever. Do you still have left-over birthday money from _your_ grandfather?” It’s impossible to miss how her head tilts when she speaks. 

“Stop looking through my head!” Regina says indignant because that had been her secret. She had picked it up at the post-office and everything. And she _hates_ it when Zelena drops into her mind. 

“Look, if I could finance my debauchery through legitimate and constant means I would. But we both know how mother feels about that,” Zelena taps her fingers on the mattress. “So can you spare the twenty-dollars in that shoebox under this bed or not?”

“Move your feet.” She slaps her ankles away and retrieves the box. With all her secrets. Ticket stubs, two birthday cards. She has ten dollars left without the twenty.

“I’ll pay you back.” Zelena says as she stashes the bill into her front pocket. 

“With what money?” Regina furrows her brow. She knows she won’t be getting the money back, doesn’t understand why Zelena wants to pretend otherwise. 

“I’ll figure something out,” She smirks and heads towards the door. “Mother seems to.” 

Regina has a restless night after that. Paces in her room. Bites at her nails. Makes mother her tea and hands it to her with the demanded niceties. Regina waits, and waits for Zelena. Hears mother go to bed downstairs. Eventually she reaches for her walkman and listens to music about loves she’ll never know. She isn’t able to sleep until Zelena’s steps are approaching her room. Until her sister’s door creaks and it’s clear she’s dropped herself onto her mattress. The birds are singing by then.

Mother wakes them before their seven A.M. alarm. Tells them to do something about their hair and put on their best clothes. They’re spending the day at the club, volunteering for the Rotaries. Mrs. No-Last-Name is there, kissing mother’s cheek. Waving at them from afar as they walk away arm in arm. Mother gives them a look that is nothing but a threat. Falter in the slightest way and they’ll know her when they get back to the house. It’s up to them to help her keep climbing now that papi is gone. 

In between smiles and polite conversation Zelena sweats her hangover. Discreetly drinks all the water the servers offer. Even manages to pass her sudden trip to the bathroom as a food allergy. Regina spends her day in a dress that is too tight over her chest, she laughs at mother’s friends joking that in a couple of years she’ll be old enough to date their George or their William. She covers her mouth after a drink, accepts the champagne the Rotary chair says she can have. 

All under mother’s watchful eye. 

* * *

It’s a cold February night. It’s a good night for luck. Mother had wanted the house to herself. One of those rare nights where the tea room isn’t enough. Where all the Rotaries had wanted something, needed something badly enough that they would resort to mother. Regina chooses to only focus on being allowed to be out as she balances herself on the railing at the pier. She is fourteen and these are the luxuries she can afford.

“How long do these things usually last?” Marian asks as she takes one sip of their shared banana soda and passes it back to Regina. 

“Depends,” She tries to put a name to the faces of all the women there. “On what they want, how much they’re willing to pay for it. I think tonight might go on for a while, judging by the thickness of the envelope they brought along.” 

Marian shudders, even if she tries to suppress it. Even if she still looks Regina in the eye.

“My mom does santeria around the house sometimes. Sage to cleanse it once in a while, whips the avocado tree in the backyard but--” 

“She is nothing like mother?” 

The sweetness of the banana at least makes this conversation easier.

“Sorry.” 

“It’s alright.” Regina blows air into her hands. “It gets me out of the house.” 

“You know, I don’t think we should waste an opportunity like this.” Marian slips off from the railing. “We should go down to the rink.”

“I don’t know, Marian.” Mother is unpredictable, even if she wants her out she might punish her for an imagined offense. For daring to do more than she would otherwise allow.

“Little Joan is working the music tonight, I can slip her a CD.” She takes her hand and pulls. “I promise I’ll make that Rob guy trip and fall on his skates if he so much as breathes near you.” 

She tries not to smile, rolls her eyes and plays difficult. Likes to be reminded of how much she means to Marian. 

“Regina, _come on._ ” 

“If you insist.” 

Marian pulls through the half-lit pier. Lets her have the last of the banana soda, calls her a name or two. Regina thinks tonight might be worth it. If she gets to lace her skates and move to the music. It’ll be worth whatever happens when she goes back to the house. They’re almost at the rink, she can tell by the bright neon. Marian is doing an impression of Mrs. Morrison when Regina spots her sister. A duffle bag over her shoulder, wearing her best coat. Oz, el feo ese as papi would have called him, has a hand around her waist. 

They’re going somewhere, that piece of junk he calls a car is parked at the corner next to the pizza place. There is a strange look on her sister’s face. Something in between sadness and determination. 

“Hey!” Regina calls out as she runs to meet her. Stop her. “Zelena!”

“Regina,” Her eyes are wide as she pushes Oz away from her. “What are you doing here?”

He gestures towards the car and then to his watch. Oz shakes his head when it’s clear Zelena isn’t following just yet.

“It doesn’t matter what I’m doing here. Where are _you_ going?” Something like anger is bubbling in her chest. Regina can’t quite name it yet. 

“Who says I’m going anywhere?” Zelena smiles and that pushes Regina. Makes her blood boil.

“Dejate de mierdas,” She hisses as she points to the duffle bag. “I’m not stupid.”

Her sister drops her shoulders and sets her bag on the pavement. 

“I left you a note.” It’s barely above a mumble. “Which feels kind of pointless and embarrassing now.” 

“Why are you doing this? You’re graduating this summer, you’ll go away to school, why not wait.--” 

“And what?” Zelena’s eyes are brimming with tears now. “Come back every December? Every Summer? Get a degree in something I hate? Marry a man I despise even more? Give mother half my salary and never be free of this?”

“You can’t!” Now she feels herself crying angry tears. Because Zelena is her sister, her older sister. This isn’t how it’s supposed to go. “You can’t leave me in that house alone with her!” 

She bites her lip and then wraps her arms around Regina. So tight, like she never has. 

“I can’t stay around to be her second favorite punching bag, Regina.” Zelena runs her fingers through her hair. “If you’ve got any sense, you’ll do the same when the time comes.”

“No,” Regina is nothing but stubborn. “There have to be other ways, you can’t just go like this.” 

At that Zelena pulls away and kisses her forehead. 

“Take care of her, yeah?” She seems to say to Marian as she wipes her tears away. “I’ll see you, sis.” 

It seems to her that the night turns colder as Zelena turns on her heel and walks away. Without looking back, getting into Oz’s car without even a wave. Regina crosses her arms around her middle, unable to keep herself from crying. 

“Hey, hey it’s OK.” Marian puts a hand on her shoulder and then pulls her into her arms.

It makes her crumble in the middle of the street. Where the neon signs make everything pink and purple.

* * *

In the three years without her sister the shadow in the house has grown larger. Mother acts as if nothing has changed, she holds her sessions that only grow more frequent. There are talks of Yale and Harvard with her grades. She has ideas of making papi’s family pay for it, she’s sent them her acceptance letters. Her SAT scores and letters of recommendation. If she were younger, if she hadn’t spent years dissecting mother, Regina would understand less. She was born for the sole purpose of giving mother a new life. Pushing her up that ladder she desperately wants to keep climbing. That tie with her father’s family must never be severed. For appearances, for the money. 

That endless climb has landed Regina at the stables, riding at the same schedules as the Georges, Christophers, and Williams mother approves for her. Regina nods and smiles less than instructed but enough to keep appearances. Enough that she gets to ride Rocinante every Thursday. She doesn’t notice anything or anyone but the horse that doesn’t belong to her. She is always sad to let go of him. 

“You’ll be a good boy, won’t you lindo?” Regina coos as she brushes his neck one afternoon.

“He is always good,” A stable hand says so suddenly she can’t help but jolt. “I’m sorry, I did not mean to scare you.” 

“You did not scare me.” Regina tells him as she keeps brushing his neck. “You’d need a lot more than that to frighten me.” 

He smiles at her and she is certain she has never seen him before. He’s at least a foot taller than her and his cropped hair that is just beginning to curl near his forehead.

“I am Daniel,” He gives his name in Spanish, in the same cadence papi used. 

“Regina.” She says and returns his smile. 

Daniel becomes someone she looks forward to seeing. He lends his hand to help her off Rocinante. Always carries an extra umbrella for her. He lets her practice her Spanish, teaches her the slang she hasn’t learned. So she can laugh when he mutters chele cerote mas maje when one of the Christophers spooks a horse. She helps him with his chemistry and English homework. Daniel is good, he asks nothing of her. He likes to drive his pick up truck to the movie theater on Saturday nights. He dances with Marian and watches the time for Regina. He gets up at four every morning to tend to the horses. Has only ever taken her hand. 

So the Summer after she turns eighteen, when mother has promised her hand away to a George or Christopher, Regina gives it freely to Daniel when he asks. Because Zelena was right, she could never be free of mother’s clutches. Because she can’t love him, not in the way the gift would punish. Because she never will. She tells him this, tells him she can’t love him. He says it’s fine and lets out a sigh. She tells him about mother’s plans too. The already-written engagement announcement to be released at the right time, the planned pregnancy for her second year of law school. He asks his question again and Regina says yes with tears in her eyes. It’s the only way she can become untouchable. Unreachable.

“Regina, are you sure you want to go through with this?” Marian asks as she hands her the bouquet she’d managed to put together in a rush. 

“It’s the only choice I have.” She replies as she takes a deep breath, because there is only one thing Marian can mean. It makes a knot in the back of her throat. “Any other life where I get... to be really _me_ , is nothing but a dream. And Daniel, he’s good to me. Better than I deserve...” 

“OK. OK.” Her friend hugs her, like she did the day Zelena left. “But there is no shame in changing your mind, you know?”

“I do.” Regina kisses her cheek as Mendelhson plays just outside the bathroom door. “Now, I believe it’s time for you to give me away.” 

Mother rages when she finds out. Curses until she runs out of English to use. Throws Regina’s clothes out the house. But there is nothing she can do. Nothing. And Regina laughs hysterically in Daniel’s pick-up truck. Knowing about that trust fund she gets in three years time, knowing mother’s letters worked too well. Her grandfather’s money will carry her through school. Que suerte, que suerte. Everything, everything out of her mother’s reach. It takes them two weeks to move to the other side of the country. Taking the long way through the desert and all the things they haven’t seen. Until they reach New Haven and find a small place in the center of town.

Regina enrolls in that chemistry major and that history minor. Daniel works to be a vet technician. For four years it’s all fine. Daniel makes breakfast and Regina makes dinner. Four years worth of books and midterms, without looking over her shoulder. Without worrying about tea rooms and brujeria. Four years of experimenting with her own concoctions, mixing formulas into her magic. Four years until she graduates and Daniel is cheering her on from the crowd. Regina can’t believe it. Can’t believe all he’s done for her. Without question. And that night she feels so indebted to him that she takes him to bed. 

Everything is fine for four weeks. Until her period is late.

Daniel is ecstatic when the strip turns blue. Blue for positive. A baby, Regina. A baby, he says. And she supposes she owes it to him too. To smile and dance with him in their living room. Even if she feels like she can’t breathe. Because all she can hear is mother’s voice in her head. Telling her the story of the day she was born as she brushed her hair. How when Regina was struggling to be born she had turned her blood to poison, as if her birth meant Cora Mills had to die. But mother called it a miracle, a miracle that in the end Regina had wailed and that Cora had lived to hear it. Her eyes would narrow as she told it, like life was a debt Regina was meant to repay every day. For the moment her mother’s blood ran bitter in her veins. It always made her feel that, perhaps, she had never been meant to live.

Watching her womb grow month after month she wonders about the child growing inside her, if they will ever feel that way about her. Feel she had damned them to live. 

“Don’t you want to know if it’s a boy or a girl?” Daniel asks as he puts together a crib and mutters an hijueputa when he loses a screw.

“I don’t think it makes a difference.” Regina looks away from him. Because she can’t tell him the truth.

She is terrified. Terrified that they won’t even be born if she so much as pictures them as a boy. Because Regina couldn’t help but love them already. With all that she has, even if she was never taught to love very well. Regardless if they might grow to resent her.

The day her water breaks Regina is saying her prayers over the finished crib. She calls for Daniel and it’s as if time has stopped. Labor is long and hard. Regina asks for the drugs until it’s too late for them. It feels like she is being ripped apart, Daniel gets her ice. Gives her something to bite into. Whispers uno mas, uno mas when she says she can’t do it. Until there is a piercing cry. 

“It’s a boy!” The doctor announces to the room.

Regina only knows to cry. Cry when they place him on her chest. Cry when they wrap him in blue because her heart expands and expands in a way it never has before. The gift will come for him. It will. She names him Henry Daniel through her tears. They take him home on the second day. Regina doesn’t sleep, watching his chest rise and fall in his moises. Waiting for that familiar pain in her own chest, the one that tells her that the gift has come to collect. The phone rings and she answers quickly. Knowing who it must be.

“Alo.” Her throat is dry and rough.

“Hey sis,” Zelena’s voice comes through loud and clear. “Heard I’m a tia now.” 

“Zelena.” Regina sobs out her name. “Oh Zelena, he’s perfect.” 

“I heard that too.” Her voice is uncharacteristically kind. “Do you want to tell me what is keeping you up? Don’t deny it, you picked up after one ring.”

Her hands shake, her stomach is cold with fear. Everything hurts when Regina thinks about the days. The years that will come where she waits and waits for the day. For the moment when that dagger in her chest is back.

“I’m so afraid. I’m so afraid he’ll stop breathing the minute I look away. That… I’m afraid I’ve cursed him to be my son and--”

“The way I see it,” It sounds like she’s lighting a cigarette at the other end. “Maria Isabel cursed the men we dared to love. Little Henry there is just a baby. Won’t make up his mind about the whole being a man thing for a while. Maybe he won’t be one after all.” 

Regina is struck, lost for words. For theories, for magic. Anything to repay her sister. Who had felt her awake, wherever she might be.

“How did you know his name?” Regina watches him stir but quickly settle back to sleep.

“I'm a witch, remember?” Zelena laughs into the phone. “You wouldn’t have named him anything else. Get some sleep, Regina. He’ll still be there in the morning.” 

“Zelena…” She pulls the duvet up to her neck and closes her eyes. “Thank you.”

* * *

Regina forgets about Maria Isabel and her gift. Henry smiles for the first time, gurgles after. He claps his hands at the bubbles in his bath. His hair grows thicker and his legs kick whenever she changes his diaper. Months, and months of firsts. Of being so sure that this happiness is meant to stick. That this is her life, her child grabbing at her fingers with his whole hand. This is who Regina was meant to be all along. 

Daniel comes home and Henry giggles at the sight of him. Throws his arms in the air, begging to be picked up. Daniel smiles so wide and sways with him. Kisses the top of his head and mumbles something against his hair.

“I was thinking, you know, that the boy needs a dog.” He tells her as Henry slaps his face. “Tiene que ser grande, so it can take these hits.”

“A dog?” Regina shakes his head. “A big dog? In this small apartment?”

“So we move houses.” Daniel shrugs, like it’s the easiest decision. “What do you say, Henry? Un perro graaaaandote y una casa graaaandota? Is that a yes? That’s a yes.” 

Regina thinks of Purisima. Of the sea and what it could have been had her life always been this way.. Thinks of the old house, with the tile roof and white walls. The wooden beams and wonders if it could have ever been a home. Looking at Daniel with Henry in his arms she thinks maybe it could have been. That deep gratitude spreads and spreads over her chest again. For all Daniel has done for her. For Henry, for singing lullabies to him every night. The sleepless nights, and boiling bottles. All so full of love for their son. 

Daniel lies down on the floor with Henry sitting square on his chest. Babbling and blowing raspberries. Her son is giggling when Regina feels it again. The soul-tearing pain inside her chest. The one that could only mean one thing.

“No. No.” She mutters, her heart beating and thinking that the day has come. 

The gift has come to collect. Come to claim her son. Regina jumps off the sofa and goes for Henry. Who is lying face first on Daniel’s chest. She turns him over and immediately breathes a sigh of relief when she finds him unharmed. Relief turns to horror, to guilt. As her eyes fall on Daniel’s. So still and already without spark. Taken by Maria Isabel’s gift, just like it did papi. It shouldn’t have been, it should have been impossible. Weak, weak. She was too weak to keep this from happening again. 

Henry begins to wail, and Regina says I’m sorry, mi vida. I’m sorry, I’m so sorry. Until her voice is hoarse and the ambulance’s siren drowns her out.

* * *

**Phoenix, Arizona. Ten years later.**

It’s the hottest day of the year and the AC is broken. The fan in the interrogation room is doing little to help her. Emma tries not to run her fingers through her hair. Not to let her discomfort show because her asshole captain is behind the two-way glass with her jerk partner. She was made to understand that this questioning was make it or break it for her case. If she can’t prove Killian Jones is in some way connected to her two murder cases then it’s over. Emma knows it’s him. Feels it in her gut. That uneasy feeling when she feels his eyes on her. The way he smiles knowingly at the officers when he walks into the precinct. It’s him, she knows it’s him. 

“On May 23rd, you claim you were in Mesa--”

“Claim? No, love. I was there.” Jones taps on the metal table. “I thought we had already covered this bit. At least a good half dozen of my mates can vouch for me.” 

“Right. But humor me, Mr. Jones.” Emma feels her shirt sticking to her back. “What were you doing there?”

He throws his head back and laughs. “If I said I was doing peyote at Usery Mountain, would you arrest me, detective?”

“No. Let’s stay on track now.” It’s getting harder to keep her cool. “It’s feasible that you could have driven to Deer Valley and back--”

“Does this not count as harassment?” Jones leans forward and leers at her. “Or do you just like having me in here, all to yourself?”

“I’m only trying to get to the bottom of what happened to Sheila Ramirez.” Emma opens her folder to show him the photo she’d pulled from Sheila’s Instagram. “Who you were seeing at the time…”

“I see a lot of women.” He scratches at his stubble and laughs. “Maybe you should ask around. You might like what you find.”

Emma narrows her eyes. If she were ten years younger she might have clocked him in the jaw. He looks like every other guy in this place, who smokes in the alley. Gets too drunk at dive bars and ends up breaking everything and everyone in his path.

“Let’s go back to the night she was murdered--”

“Pull it back, Swan. Enough.” Asshole Captain’s voice comes through the speaker. “You’re free to go, Mr. Jones.”

Jones claps his hands and smirks at her. He gets to his feet and leaves the room with a kick to his step. Emma follows shortly after, she can’t stay here for longer than she has to. Can’t stew in the awareness of knowing exactly why Jones is walking away. Why she can’t get anything to stick. He turns just as he reaches the front desk and winks at her.

“Farewell and adieu to you, lady.” He sings so smugly and walks through the precincts’s doors. 

Emma watches in horror when a woman greets him, circling a key ring in her finger. A woman who looks just like Sheila Ramirez. Dark haired, tanned skin. Like Yaneth Tapia, the file she hadn’t been allowed to bring into the interrogation room. Her eyes are just as green. Jones kisses her, almost forcefully. And Emma wants to scream. Take the woman by the shoulders and keep her safe. But before she can move and warn her they’re gone.

“You ran a shitshow in there, Swan.” Her jerk partner tells her as he creeps up on her. “Captain wants to see you in his office.” 

“Thanks, Johnson.” Emma rolls her eyes and begins her walk of humiliation across the bullpen. 

All eyes are on her, she can feel them. Already placing bets on how long Asshole Captain shouts at her. This precinct is the worst. With the leering, the fudging of numbers. Unjustified arrests that get swept under the rug. It’s not worse than any other Emma has bounced around from. It’d been naive of her to think it would ever change. That what she did here could ever make a difference, that her complaints were taken seriously. She knocks on Asshole Captain’s door and waits for him to grunt to let her come in.

“You wanted to see me, sir?” Emma puts her hands behind her back. 

“Five months of work on those cases and the best you can do is that sorry excuse for an interrogation?” He drinks from the glass on his desk and smacks his lips. “No DNA, alibis check out. What are we even paying you for, Swan?” 

She doesn’t flinch, doesn’t furrow her brow. Emma isn’t giving him the satisfaction.

“His alibis are shaky at best. There is CCTV footage of Jones in public spaces just a few minutes drive from…”

“Next thing you’ll tell me is that you just have a feeling about him.” He lies back against his chair and crosses his arms. “You’re dropping these cases, Swan.” 

“Why?” She clenches her fists.

“Because you have nothing and they’re being reassigned to a different detective.” Asshole Captain doesn’t bother looking at her. “Someone whose judgement isn’t as clouded as yours.” 

Emma knows what he means. Exactly what he means. It’s what everyone has always thought about her, and she has reached her limit. She wanted to solve this, stop Jones from doing it again. To get justice for Sheila and Yaneth, because no one had claimed them as theirs. But it’s all being taken away from her. The victims don’t matter to this place.

So. Fuck it. _Fuck_ this place. 

“Did you know, sir, that the reason Ted Bundy evaded capture for so long was because police were so chummy with him? And what’s really funny, was that officers actually let him escape custody several times. The judge even thought he would have made a fine lawyer.” 

Her chest rises and falls unsteadily, her whole body is boiling. Emma can feel her pulse ringing in her eyes, beating away in her throat. 

“What the hell do you mean by that, Swan?” He barks as he gets to his feet. 

“I mean that you’re all complicit, sir.” She unpins her badge and gun and tosses them to the seat in front of her. “And that’s if none of you are corrupt enough to be covering this up, for whatever reason.”

“You...you...not even a union will save you if you don’t take that back.” His face gets redder and redder. “I’ll make sure your life is a living hell. We’ll splatter your name all over the media if you so much as breathe a word about this department, I’ll--”

“Do it.” Emma readies her fists, just in case. Just in case she needs them. “I quit.”

“Get out!” He shakes his fist in the direction of the door.

It isn’t like TV when she crosses the bullpen again. No clapping for standing up to Asshole Captain, for showing integrity a little too late. They all glower and scowl at her and if she doesn’t get to her car in the next five minutes she might not even find it there. Emma rushes to her old Bug and doesn’t go back to her apartment. She doesn’t go back to any of her regular places. Instead Emma picks a direction and drives. Makes a wish, one she first made as a kid. She wishes she could hear a call, something to give her purpose. Emma doubts that wish would lead her into a crowded mall. But it’s where she ends up all the same. In a plastic chair, with the smell of salt and pretzels in the air, wondering what her next step should be. Habit makes Emma pull out her phone. Her browsing history remembers Killian Jones’s social media and she scrolls through endless photos until she finds the woman she saw today. 

Zelena Mills. Whose latest photo is of the open road from inside Jones’s car.

Emma’s stomach twists. She has to follow them before it’s too late. Trust that this is where she is meant to go. 


	2. Chapter 2

The rose and ruda soap is Regina’s favorite to make. To distill down the essential oils for days, watch them drain down to a small bottle. To mix in the coconut oil and watch the lye change color in front of her eyes. It always puts a strain on her arms but she welcomes it. Like the scent of flowers in the air, she pictures the red and yellow of the flowers mixing together. She makes those colors swirl when she drops the liquid onto the mold. Marian had labelled it Miraculous Rose and told Regina she should trust her, gringas would eat it up. Especially when they discovered that it really did soothe pain and burned skin. 

“Regina,” Marian says with that tone she has used as a code in the years they’ve had the store. “Just coming to see if we have any Desert Sage body moisturizer in the backroom.” 

“Of course,” She replies, knowing that their voices carry and that an entitled customer is just outside the door. “Though you’d be lucky if there are any left.” 

Marian begins a countdown with one hand and shakes her head. The people in Purisima don’t change, even if now they buy their soaps and creams instead of hiding their need for brujeria.

“Did you find any? I was really hoping to use it after tanning later today!” A Christine No Last Name calls out. Regina thinks she might still be wearing her sunglasses. 

Her friend breathes in and glares at Regina for getting to sit this one out. For raising an eyebrow and daring to silently mock her. Marian forces on a smile and heads back to the front of the store.

“No, I’m so sorry we seem to be all out.” Her Customer voice is so much higher than her regular voice. “But we can email you as soon as it’s ready. It should be a short wait.” 

“Would you? That would be amaze…” 

“It’s no problem. Feel free to take some samples for the trouble of coming all the way down here.” 

“Thank you, these are just gorge!” She must mean the delicately-shaped soap flowers. 

The bell rings and with that she knows the customer is gone. She removes her gloves and washes and moisturizes her hands for good measure. 

Regina is grateful every day that Marian is her business partner, who can suffer idiots and laugh about it afterwards. It would have been a long ten years if she hadn’t been here when Regina had returned with Henry in her arms. After she had to put mother’s affairs in order and bury her. Paint the walls of the house and sweep away the dust. 

“Where do they come up with their words?” Regina asks as she opens the register. “Do you think they all decide on them at brunch?” 

“I wanna say goat yoga.” Marian says as she rearranges their citrus bars. “Hey, I think I spot our favorite customers.”

At that Regina’s heart always picks up its pace and she smiles before she can register. The bell above the door rings and she quickly closes the register.

“Hi, mom! Hi, tia Marian!” Henry says. Marian bends down so he can kiss her cheek. “Guess what we did at school today?”

“You said _I_ could tell them!” Lucy says as she takes her turn to kiss Marian hello. “Oops sorry, hi tia Regina.” 

“Did you cut a toad open?” Marian laughs as Henry and Lucy pull a face. 

“Ew, did you really do that?” Lucy sucks her cheeks and balances herself on the balls of her feet.

“Wait. Are _we_ gonna have to do that? Mom?” Henry looks at her with panic in his eyes and she only knows to laugh. 

“ _Mom._ ” He puts his foot down and Regina unties her apron. 

“Your tia is just looking to scare you, mi vida.”

“I’m not.” Marian flips the sign on the door. Because it’s Friday and they always close early on Fridays. 

“Are too!” Lucy says so indignantly that Regina can see what Sabine and Jacinda mean about Lucy being hers too. “This is like when you told us about climbing rope all the way to the ceiling in gym class!”

“Oh, that’s one-hundred-percent real. How do you think I got this scar?” She shows them the old scar in the palm of her hand. 

“Tia!” They both say in identical tones. 

“How about we head home and you can tell me about school on the way?” Regina offers as she runs her fingers through the curly ends of Henry’s hair. 

That seems to gain their approval as they exchange a conspiratorial look. 

“We’re still on for that Sunday PTA thing, right?” Marian has that pretty-please expression on her face, the one Regina has known since they were kids. 

“If we absolutely have to, yes.” Regina fetches her purse and her keys. “Fifty chocolate chip cookies as bribery.” 

“Roland appreciates your service.” She kisses her cheek goodbye. “I’ll close up.” 

Regina shakes her head that she reserves for her oldest friend and heads out the door. Henry and Lucy take her hands. They’re practically skipping, relieved that it’s Friday. Because it means no homework, the house smelling like bread and the extra long showers they’re allowed to take before bed. This life happened in a blink of an eye, quickly. So quickly. Regina had dusted her father’s books in that old house and re-taken the life he’d wanted for himself. For them. So unexpected, all of it. All of them.

“So, what is this big thing you were dying to tell me?”

“Miss Blanchard brought a big book of fairy tales today!” Henry begins with a smile. “And.--”

“She read us one about a true love spell!” Lucy adds and sticks her tongue out at Henry. 

Regina smiles even as her heart skips a beat at the mention of true love.

“Was it a good story at least?”

“It was about a prince and a maiden in the woods.” Henry says pinching his nose. “So _I_ said they got it all wrong.” 

“Yeah! They didn’t do the prayers like you and mama do!” Lucy chimes in. “There was a fairy godmother too. It made no sense, tia!” 

“And what did Miss Blanchard say to that?” Regina is half surprised that she didn’t find a note pinned to their backpacks. With her frilly script of a signature at the bottom. 

They cross the street, past the flower shop and make a right to begin the trek uphill to the house. 

“She said we should make up our own story,” Henry says excitedly. “I could write and Lucy could draw!”

There is a secret breath of relief that she will not have to talk to Mary Margaret Blanchard about what kind of environment they’re providing for them. Or that nod with a hand to her chest she does when she is saying something that verges between hurtful and ignorant. 

“And mom, we were wondering what’s a love spell like?” He looks up at her, with those eyes that almost always render her speechless. When he asks a difficult question she doesn’t have words to answer. 

“Did you ever cast one? Mom says she tried it once but it didn’t work.” 

Their house is that white speck at the end of the road. Standing before the blue of the sky, the endless blue of the ocean behind it. Regina's hearts skips, jumps. It has been a great while since she has thought about this. 

“I did.” Regina feels a pull of sadness, for the little girl who made up silly words. “I can’t say I had different results than Jacinda.” 

“Why?”

“Well, I was about your age.” She tries to keep her voice steady. “And I asked for all sorts of impossible things.” 

“Like what?” Henry squeezes her hand as they walk. 

“Oh, I don’t know.” Regina laughs trying to recall all of her requests. The specifics. For her impossible girl. “Her eyes had to be green and brown, I remember that much.” 

“Do you think you’ll ever meet her?” Lucy asks, not noticing how Henry has grown quiet. 

Regina knows why. The dark brown eyes in Daniel’s photo, how she’d told him his father was a good man. Had left out the details of their relationship, of who they had been to each other. And now, the love spell that wished for everything Daniel was not. It cannot possibly make sense in Henry’s mind. Regina fears the day it might. 

“Perhaps,” She kisses the top of Henry’s head and then Lucy’s. “Why think about it when I’ve got you two?” 

Her son laughs and seems to forget about love spells as he breaks away from her grasp.

“I’ll race you to the house!” He says, already running ahead.

“Cheater!” Lucy chases after him, her backpack bouncing up and down as she does. 

“Careful!” Regina watches them go, already forgetting about red threads, golden hearts, and all the other things she could never have.

* * *

The ice has already melted into her soda. Emma drinks it anyway because it’s better than staying thirsty. The inside of her car must smell like bacon grease by now. It’s been a day since she set off from Phoenix, sure of what she had to. With not much of a plan. One had failed to materialize even after she crossed state lines and followed the clues on Zelena Mills’s Instagram. Followed them all the way to Los Angeles. To the traffic lights and cities within cities in it. It’s easier to get lost here and that worries Emma. Because if she knows anything about Jones’s MO, it won’t be long now. Maybe hours before he makes his move. She keeps her eyes on the pretend dive bar a few blocks away. One of his previous hang-outs, for the wanna-be-rock-stars with a coke habit. Emma should know from all the hours she’s spent combing through his social media. 

Her knee and ankles hurt from a day of driving but Emma can’t regret it. Can’t regret the decision she made. Another woman is in danger and as far as she knows this is her only chance. Emma and her no plan is the best shot Zelena Mills has of surviving. Judging from Zelena’s posts, that never go beyond a sentence or a hashtag for a tag, she is just like Yaneth and Sheila. Never staying in one place long enough to sprout roots. Running when things got hard. Emma supposes she understood that. Knew what it is everyone else thought, that it had been their fault. Their fault that they drank too much. Drank too much and let their killer in. Emma had thought that maybe. Maybe with her on the case it’d be different this time. She’d been a grain of sand against the tide. 

The doors to the pretend-dive bar swing open and Jones stumbles out. His arm around Zelena’s waist. She seems to be holding him up but even then. Even if he can hardly walk straight, he snatches the keys from her hands. It looks like Zelena has just threatened to walk away. 

“Come on, please.” Emma says with one hand on the door handle. “Please.” 

But Jones laughs and suddenly straightens his back. He says something, something that turns her face green. A chill goes down Emma’s spine. She opens her door too late. Too late to stop. Zelena Mills sliding into the passenger seat of a Camaro that hadn’t been in her file. Emma still swings her door open and attempts to cross the street. 

“No. No. Fuck.” She mutters as a car honks at her as she watches the car speed away.

Emma gets back in the Bug. Hears the bumper scratch against the car in front of her. There’s no time. No time to reach Zelena Mills. 

* * *

The night is that gentle quiet, when Lucy and Henry pretend to have gone to bed. When the wood creaks under their feet and almost imperceptible giggles come from upstairs. Regina checks the pepper in her mixture before setting the slow cooker for tomorrow’s lunch. Sabine and Jacinda are busy loading the dishes into the dishwasher and wiping the crumbs off the counters. Every Friday night is taken back by the scene. To think that Marian had called and asked for a favor. Two friends with a daughter had just moved to the area and still hadn’t found a place to stay. They had moved into the house during the storm, Regina had taken Lucy from Sabine’s arms and laid her down next to Henry in his crib. A couple of weeks turned into months. Into years. Henry and Lucy having their birthdays in the backyard. Sabine taking over the kitchen on Sundays and Jacinda packing lunch boxes in the morning. This house would be empty without them. 

“You know,” Jacinda begins as she wipes her hands on a rag. “We were thinking of going to the city tomorrow. Take the kids to the Exploratorium.” 

“There’s an event about encouraging scientific thought and since they’re both having a little trouble with science lately--”

“You can hardly blame them for that,” Regina snorts as she pours herself a glass of cider. “Have you ever sat through one of Mary Margaret Blanchard’s talks?”

“Regardless of grudges against school teachers,” Sabine rolls her eyes and reaches for the gin. “Do you think it’s a good idea?”

“I think it’s a great idea.” Regina says taking her drink to the sunroom she’d added a few years back. 

Jacinda follows her out with her own spiked lemonade and her deck of cards. 

“It could turn into an over-night thing, por si acaso,” She raises a brow as she sets her cards down on the table in front of them. “Because of a mystery woman is in the cards.” 

“Not this again.” Regina pinches her nose and takes gulp from her cider. “All I have in my near future is the thousand thread count sheets I ordered last week.” 

“Jay…” Sabine scolds her as she plops down on an armchair. “Let the poor woman breathe.” 

“Ay, OK. Four weeks in a row she’s gotten the Lovers!” Jacinda lifts the card for them to see. “I even changed decks y mira!” 

“Angel, I don’t think you’re ever going to turn her to Tarot.” 

“This isn’t about turning her, this about my reputation, mi amor.” Jacinda shakes her head and lies back in her chair. “Ella que es reina--”

“I understood that.”

“Do you want to try and read them again?” Regina offers, not without a sigh. 

Jacinda smacks her arm like a sister would. Like maybe Zelena would have if they had ever done this sort of thing. If they had lived that life Regina had wished for the day papi left them. 

The cards have a golden edge to them. A delicate purple on their back, almost black. Nothing like any of the things Regina found in mother’s tea room when she first stepped inside it. Jacinda’s careful fingers spread them in a half moon on the table in front of them. 

“Aja see, the Lovers!” She says, setting the card down. Two women stare back at Regina and she can’t help but stare at their golden bodies. “The reversed chariot and--”

“And what?” Regina says eyeing the upside down jester in the third card. The upright card of a woman with her hands in a lion’s mane. 

“Trouble.”

Regina tries to laugh. To take another sip of her drink. But the look in Jacinda’s eye is too concerned. The look of a sister who knows better. Knows better and lets it happen all the same. On instinct, or something like it, Regina reaches for her phone in her pocket. Thinks of a sister who knew better. Zelena. Zelena, wherever she might be. The screen lights up before she unlocks it. 

Incoming call from an unknown. But she knows. Knows like she did when she first brought Henry. When mother died. This is her sister calling. Regina feels trouble brewing, brewing until it spills over. 

“Zelena.”

“Regina. Sis,” Her sister’s voice is only above a whisper. Scared like Zelena has never been. “Can you come get me? Please come get me.” 

* * *

She lost them. Emma with her no-plan lost Jones and Zelena Mills. The Camaro had been a few blocks ahead of her, ahead of the red and orange of brake lights. Two right turns and three stop lights later the car had vanished. Her hands hurt from when she had banged them against the wheel. Because Emma knows, knows in her gut that tonight is the night. That he’s getting bolder, his behavior is escalating. Doesn’t need a shitty degree in criminal psychology to know that. Everything about this case is screaming at her to keep going. Keep driving, keep checking the streets for that car. Until the Bug is running on fumes and she stops for gas. 

Emma stretches after she’s done pumping, decides she needs a coffee as the sky begins to darken. Black with two packets of sugar. The smell of overcooked hot dog makes her scrunch her nose, fluorescent light that makes her reflection look exhausted on every surface. The song playing she thinks odd for a place like this. Her ear isn’t trained to pick up the instruments. But the lyrics. The lyrics she recognizes. The words Killian Jones had sung as he walked away. 

_Farewell and adieu to you, Spanish ladies,_

_Farewell and adieu to you, ladies of Spain;_

_For we have received orders_

_For to sail to old England,_

_But we hope in a short time to see you again._

Zelena had been there. Waiting with keys in her hand. Emma could have stopped it then. Could have run to get her. Warned her. She has never been fast enough. She reaches for her phone to do her obsessive check of social media when her phone pings with a notification. New post by Zelena Mills. Her fingers are quick, even as they shake, to open the post. It’s a photo. Zelena is smiling in it but she can see it. How forced it is, how her eyes give away fear. The sky above her is still a pale blue. It’s a red herring for anyone following her. He has control over her phone, over what she posts. Who she calls. Leave no trail behind.

“Out on the town”

It’s the only caption. Emma can see her writing it under his watchful eye. But. He was careless. Behind Zelena she can clearly make out a sign. _Restaurante y Pupuseria Lemus. 323,906-533._ They might not be there still but it’s a bread crumb. One Emma can follow. She downs her coffee and heads for the Bug. The Maps app tells her it’s a two hour drive from Van Nuys to the restaurant. Traffic is one thick red line all the way there. But it’s something. There is no one to call. No one who would believe her, who would believe Zelena Mills when stopped. No one who Killian Jones couldn’t convince of his innocence with one look. 

Emma pushes the gas and thinks this might be what purpose feels like. 

* * *

She would know. Regina would know if something happened to Zelena. She would feel that sharp pain in her chest. That dagger that only presents itself when Maria Isabel’s gift returns.The hum inside the airplane cabin is only making her heart beat faster. The wings are adjusted and readjusted just outside the window and she almost snaps at a cheery flight attendant when she informs her she’s in the wrong seat. Regina had kissed Henry goodbye, promised she would be back before he knew it. Sabine had driven her to the airport as Regina bought a ticket on the next flight out to Los Angeles. No bags. Just her purse and phone. 

The phone she keeps checking for Zelena’s location. Regina clears her throat and wipes at her eyes. Her sister. Her older sister had never been frightened of anything. She’d worn belt marks on her back like a badge of honor. Zelena never even flinched at mother. Tonight her voice was broken. Like a child. She didn’t have much time, she’d said, but she was afraid. Afraid of the man she’d been seeing. Zelena had whispered all her passwords, told Regina to keep an eye on the location on her phone. Because she could only hold him off for so long. 

“Fuck.” Regina settles back into her seat and keeps staring at the unmovable red dot. Del Mar Motel in Rosemead. 

The seatbelt signs light up. The Captain speaks and Regina doesn’t bother to listen. Not about the weather. Or estimated arrival. It’ll be an hour, she knows that. One hour between San Francisco and Los Angeles. Another twenty four minutes from the airport to the motel. Regina will know how to find her. Whatever has them linked, will guide her. Magia o sangre. The Uber will wait for them and they’ll be flying out as soon as possible. 

Takeoff has her closing her eyes. Feeling the strength of the engine. Has her willing it to go faster. When Regina opens her eyes again, it’s only darkness outside. Only the red and white lights on the wings. Del Mar Motel on Del Mar Avenue in Rosemead, she repeats it in her head like a silent prayer. Until the words merge with the words she’d only learned as an adult. Pleas, muttered, for protection. With the many names of her God. Regina digs her nails into her palms and tries to feel her sister. And calls for help. Any help. 

The plane has barely hit the ground when Regina is requesting a car. Relieved that the red dot has not left the motel. She pushes past people, doesn’t apologize. Rushes down all the escalators. On the newly polished floors. Past baggage claim and gift shops. Until the dry air of Southern California hits her skin. 

“You Regina?” A short man in a baseball cap asks from a black sedan. 

She barely glances at the app to confirm it’s her driver before she’s climbing on the backseat. 

“Del Mar Motel, right?” He looks at her from the rearview mirror. 

“Yes.” Regina looks at him. At his mustache and tired eyes. “Wilfredo, is that right?”

“It is, yeah.” He replies pulling away and picking up speed on the ramp out of the arrivals.

“Can I ask you to stay and wait for me there?” There needs to be at least one person she can trust. And maybe this stranger is enough. 

Wilfredo nods. Doesn’t ask questions. He knows better, recognizes that the look on her face means trouble. He only pushes the speed limit and swims past cars, only barely hits the brakes. A tiled roof shows up in the distance, closer and closer to the red dot. It’s barely lit, the red paint on its walls looks brown in the night. He parks by the curb and nods. 

Her heart is in her throat as she runs towards the parking. Up, down, up, down. The rhythm matches her feet. Regina feels the air for Zelena, for that connection. That thing that will show her the way. Right. Go right. A voice whispers. She obeys it without question. Suddenly someone grips her wrist. 

“Regina,” Her sister breathes and Regina could cry in relief. “You came.” 

“You thought I wouldn’t?” She kneels and inspects the cut on her lip. The bruise on her eye. “Zelena…”

“He just,” Zelena sucks in a breath. “Transformed. I could feel it happen but I thought...I thought I was too smart to let it happen to me.” 

“Let’s go.” 

“I need to get my stuff out of his car.” She tells her, pointing with her chin. “It’s that one over there.” 

“Leave it,” Regina pulls her hand as she keeps her eye on Wilfredo. “We have to go. Now.” 

“It’s all the things I own. I _need_ them.” 

“Are you serious?!” Her teeth grate as she gets the words out. 

“Of course I am!” It’s like Zelena has suddenly forgotten the urgency that made her call her. 

“No jodás, Zelena.” It’s more harsh than she intends but they have to go. Because her heart is going up and down again. Up, down. Without matching her steps. 

“What if it were you--”

“Going somewhere, are we?” His words are drenched in a thick English accent. Refined, too refined. 

It’s obvious what drove her sister to him. The very same thing that made her drive away with Oz all those years ago. She would never love him. Would never think of him outside of a thrill, a way out of a life she hadn’t wanted. Or grown bored with. Regina can see that, that cheap thrill in the many rings on his fingers. The unwashed look to him and the leather that covers his white skin. 

“Kiliian, I was only--”

“If you wanted to go for a drive, you could have just said so, love.” 

“She’s coming with me.” Regina tells him, standing straight. The adrenaline is making her blood rush to her fingertips. 

“A sister, is that right?.” He leers as he inspects her. “I rather think you’re coming with us.” 

“You’re insane if you think we’re going anywhere with you.” 

He laughs and shakes his head. He reaches for the back of his pants and it’s then that Zelena squeezes her hand. A gun. Pointed at them. 

“It’ll be a nice drive. I promise.” 

Regina glances to the street. Sees that Wilfredo has driven away. The silent call for help. Any help turns into a scream she doesn’t dare voice. 


	3. Chapter 3

It’s useless. But still Emma walks into the pupuseria and shows the servers a photo of Zelena Mills. They shrug and say maybe she came. A lot of people come through, it’s the night rush. She paces up and down the street. Goes over the files she’d memorized. What did Yaneth Tapia and Sheila Raimirez have in common? Besides their dark hair and the features that could make them sisters. The thing that made her heart drop and know Jones was responsible. They seemed to be going somewhere, or thought they had been. All their life packed into a bag. Found in different places in the city. Found. Not reported missing. 

Found by guest services, bringing in fresh towels. In the morning, always the morning. Motel. A motel. Her breath is unsteady as her hands when she pulls out her phone. Emma types, searches for motels near the area. Thumbs through the options not knowing which to pick. Choose wrong and Zelena Mills will be another file. In a box gathering dust somewhere. Starlight Inn. Lincoln Park. Monterey 6. Del Mar Motel. That one is like a scream in her head. So loud that Emma swears she can hear it.

She trusts it. Trusts the call that seems to scream, _help, help. Help._ Emma doesn’t bother with the seatbelt when she drives off. Makes ten minutes go to five. Makes sharp turns. All because the voice in her head is louder and louder. It’s the typical poorly lit motel. All doors facing the parking lot. Her heart is beating away in her throat as cold spreads down in her stomach. Emma scans the place for Jones’s Camaro. And.

Emma could almost cry. Cry that it isn’t here. That this place isn’t what she expected. That the voice still begs for help. Before she leaves and jumps onto the next motel she decides to at least talk to the front desk clerk. She puts her head between her knees and takes a deep breath. Feels her heart move. Up, down. Up, down. Emma clears her throat and walks into reception. It’s cool inside. Freshly painted and with that eerie calm from late night and neon lights outside. 

“Are you checking in, ma’am?” The clerk, who looks barely out of his teens, asks her. 

“No, I am…” Emma scratches the back of her neck. The voice is making it hard to think. “I’m looking for a friend of mine. She said she’d be here.” 

“Would she have left a message for you?” He asks, eyeing her curiously.

“Maybe. Her name is Zelena Mills, she might have checked in a few hours ago.” 

It could be that he’s decided that Emma can be trusted. It could be luck. That he moves to check his records to try and give her an answer. 

“Yes. She checked in just around seven.”

“Was she with someone?” Emma decides to push it. “A man. Dark haired, speaks with an accent.”

The clerk moves closer to her and looks over his shoulder. 

“Your friend and _her_ friend left some twenty minutes ago.” 

Fuck. The voice is pounding against her skull. Asking just where she might be. Where is she that she isn’t coming. 

“You’re sure?”

“Hey, you see some stuff in this place but it’s not every day a guy drives in a muscle car with one woman and ends up leaving with two.” 

“Did you see which direction they took?” Cold sweat drips down her spine. Two women. 

Two women trapped with him. Up, down. Up,down. Her heart won’t stop.

“North? I don’t know.” 

“Thank you.” Emma says before rushing out the door.

She follows the voice. Without question. North. Emma is going North. 

* * *

Killian Jones. Somehow Regina thinks the name is appropriate. Fit to someone like him. Verging on pedestrian, it’d trick anyone into believing him to be special. Papi would have called him ojos de gargajo. Jones labelled her the designated driver, as he pulled Zelena into the backseat with him. A cigarette hangs from the corner of his lips and he plays with his lighter. Regina had lowered the window and let the wind hit her face. Drown him out. He has allowed it. She is aware everything that happens now is something he allows. Their phones are in his pockets. Regina’s wallet is tucked away inside his jacket. The gun, that he keeps on the seat. Out of Zelena’s reach. It glints in the rearview mirror whenever passing headlights flood the car. 

“California girls,” He says, wrapping an arm around Zelena. “I never knew they could look like you.” 

Regina doesn’t know what to answer to that. What to do with the chills on her neck. That distinct feeling of glancing at death through a mirror. 

“Usually I go for ones who are from nowhere,” Jones presses a kiss to Zelena’s split lip. “But you. You surprised me, love.” 

Zelena’s lips move in the mirror but Regina can’t make out her words over the wind. Regina only sees him throw his head back and laugh. Her sister laughs too, the way every woman knows. The way they all do when they feel cornered. Sin garras. Her fingers tighten around the wheel and her eyes begin to sting with tears. Screaming, begging the whole universe for help. 

“Oh, what’s got you down?” He throws himself so suddenly against her seat that Regina almost veers off road. “Jittery. Must run in the family.” 

Again she stays quiet. Doesn’t know what words are appropriate. This isn’t a game she can play, not when there are bullets involved. 

“I need to stretch my legs,” Jones pats the leather next to Regina. “Pull over.” 

There is nothing to do but obey. Regina slows down and drives to where the concrete turns to gravel. She thinks about pulling away as soon as he gets out of the car, thinks about running him over. Leaving him for dead. But he smirks, like he’s read her mind, and sticks out his hand.

“Keys, love.” 

Stupid. Stupid muscle car that needs keys in the ignition. She tries to keep her hand steady as she kills the engine and gives them to him. Jones kisses Zelena one more time before sliding out. He plays with the keys as he paces outside, stretches his arms. Cracks his neck and throws her a wink.

“Regina, don’t look back.” Zelena whispers. “Just listen. There’s belladonna in the cup holder to your right. Get it.” 

“What am I supposed to do with this? Brew him some calming tea?” She hisses as she retrieves it. “Kumbaya him into letting us go?” 

“For once in your…” There is a familiar and exasperated pause. “I’ve been mixing it into his drinks to get some sleep. It puts him out.”

“And you didn’t think that was a red fucking flag, Zelena?!” Regina can’t help herself. Can’t help the way her heart wants to be angry. Her whole body shakes with it. Even if she knows this isn’t her fault. 

Her sister rolls her eyes and pulls out a bottle of rum from under the passenger seat. 

“Spare me the lecture. And let’s--.”

“Drinking without me?” Jones says leaning against the window. “Zee, where are your manners?”

“I thought I’d have it ready. In case you got a craving for it.” It’s that smile again. The frightened one men pretend they don’t see. Guilt drops like a stone in Regina’s stomach.

At that he seems satisfied and climbs back into the back seat. Jones uncaps the bottle and the smell alone makes Regina feel sick. It mixes with the night. Cold sweat and cigarette ash. 

“Now it’s a party.” He dangles the keys for Regina to take. She swallows back her fears, her words. And starts the car. 

Keeps that silent scream as she keeps driving. Jones drinks and makes Zelena drink. His words are crude but never slur. His eyes are clear, still sober. He laughs and laughs. It’s clear what amuses him. The look in their eyes, how he has them trapped in here with him. Where the scenery turns to desert, to barren land that looks blue in the night, Jones begins to sing. Run his fingers through her sister’s hair. 

“You should join in the fun,” His voice still follows the song. “And drink.” 

“I’m the designated driver, remember?” Regina fails to keep the disgust away from her words.

“That just means you have less.” He hums back to the song. “We'll rant and we'll roar, like true British sailors, We'll rant and we'll roar across the salt seas.” 

Jones’s voice grows louder as he produces a flame with his lighter. It glows orange in the dark of the car. Regina misses what it is he does with it but doesn’t miss her sister screaming in pain. This time she does veer off the road, hears the honks of the cars behind them. He branded her. Branded her with one of his rings. Regina takes the rum away from him.

“Relax, it’s just a bit of fun!” Jones claps his hands together. “Nothing I haven’t done before!”

“Back off, you lunatic!” Regina snaps and drinks. “Fuck!” 

“You’re getting it!”

She keeps the bottle in between her thighs and searches for Zelena’s eyes in the mirror. Her reflection nods at her, whispers. 

“The belladonna.” Her voice is in Regina’s mind, mingling with her own. “Give him a strong dose.” 

Her fingers are careful to unwrap the paper that holds the dried petals together. Regina crushes them as quietly as she can, lets them fall into the bottle. However many of them. She lets them sit, lets the rum soak them up. Lets the car blend them together. Jones, she thinks, is predictable. All Regina has to do is call his attention to the bottle. She makes the alcohol slosh around, lifts it up to her lips. Makes it look like she’s taken a swig. Makes it look like she’s about to throw it out the window.

“What do you think you’re doing?!” Half of his body is over the seat as he snatches it away from her. “This is Navy Imperial! Though I suppose your kind are only good at growing the sugar cane that goes into it.” 

Jones drinks it like if it were water. One, two. Three, and four swigs. Regina’s eyes go back to the mirror every other minute. Until she catches him pressing the bottle to Zelena’s mouth. Up, down. Up, down. Her heart is beating away furiously. 

“Get off me!” Zelena cries out. It’s strangled and desperate.

He is on top of her, his hands around her neck. Regina hits the breaks and turns back to pull him off her. Claws at her neck until she feels Jones sag and drop under her grasp.

“Regina, Regina…” It’s raspy coming out of her throat. “He’s out. He’s out.” 

Zelena tries to push him off as Regina pulls him by his jacket. Her fingers slip and land at his throat. She freezes. Freezes because there isn’t a pulse beating away at her fingers. Regina checks again, frantically searches for a beat that might tell her he is only unconscious. But she does not find it. 

“Zelena. He’s dead.” 

“No. Knocked out is all.’ But she must feel how his chest doesn’t rise and fall against her because she scrambles away from the body. “Fuck. How much did you give him?!!”

“He was going to _kill_ us! Was I supposed to ask him his weight before I drugged him?!” Tears lodge themselves at the back of her throat. “Maybe I used the whole thing.” 

“I said a large dose! No toda la puta flor!” Zelena rubs her eyes and blows air out of her mouth. 

“What are we going to do?” Regina’s face goes completely numb, she can’t think. “If we call--” 

“What are you, stupid? We don’t call _anyone_ ,” She says, making her way to the front seat. “What would we even say? That it was self-defense? That you, with your chemistry degree, didn’t know what you were doing?” 

“We can’t just dump him out in the desert!” The silent scream has turned into a quiet desperation. “Cases like his they always want to solve! Mierda!”

“What we do is undo this,” Zelena tells her as if they were girls who had broken a vase. “The way mother would have.” 

* * *

It’s colder outside. That means she must have driven for hours. Hours and hours away from the heat. She slips on the leather jacket she keeps in the back of the Bug. Armor, that’s what Emma always called it. Wear it and feel stronger than she is. Not now. Not when her palms are clammy. And her hair is sticking to her forehead, like she is running a fever. There is a pain in her chest, one she has never felt before. So sharp and constant. It asks if she has made a mistake. A terrible mistake. Because the scream in her head has gone quiet. She had been following it, her body on automatic. Turning and changing speeds as it saw fit. But now Emma has to sit in this silence at a rest stop. With her breathing unsteady and the chill of the night. 

“Please.” She says to whatever. Whoever was pulling her before. “Come on, give me something.” 

Nothing. Just the passing cars on the highway. Emma closes her eyes and lies back against her seat. Asks again. Asks that the voice tells her anything in this darkness. It’s faint at first. She could have missed it. Or mistaken it for the sounds of the early morning. But it’s clearer the more she focuses on it. Crashing waves. The tide. It almost sounds like she’s there, driving close to the water. Letting the ocean chill come into the car. And she isn’t lost. Not like she thought she would be. Emma keeps driving, eyes focused on the road. Because. Because there is something she needs to do. Somewhere she needs to be. Undo, undo. What is it that she needs to undo? She asks the voice, the one that used to be a scream, to tell her. Tell her why it’s suddenly so quiet. It stays that way, the sound of waves almost lulling her to sleep. 

“Where…” Emma hears herself say. “Where are you going?”

Her eyes are too heavy to open. The darkness gets deeper. Like a bottomless pool. She asks again, asks that it say something. Anything. I made a wish, she tells it. Maybe you’re it. 

Maybe. Maybe it doesn’t know Emma is here. That it’s in her mind that it had been screaming. That it was its call Emma had been following like a guide. If she could try and reach it. Get it to listen too. But then it’s like Emma is pushed out. Cast out. It feels like cold water on her face. The early morning Sun pierces through her windshield. She can’t make sense of time, how long she has been sitting here. Her head is just starting to ache, tender at the back. 

A cup of coffee won’t hurt. Not if she has to keep driving.

The gentle beeping of coffee machines keeps her grounded. Gives her enough focus to look at her phone again and think about this logically. Emma takes her cup and wanders around the half empty place. The voice had been screaming so loudly that there hadn’t been a moment where she could try and fit the pieces together. Two women. Impulsive, Jones always seemed to fit that mold more. But it’s still too out of the left field for him. Unless he thought he had no choice. The second woman must have threatened his plans. Emma looks through Zelena’s profile, not knowing what she is looking for. Comments, likes. Too many to justify it as useful. She gives her followers a try. Zelena has almost two thousand but none really stand out.

None. Until she finds an RMs user. Up, down. Up, down. Her heart beats again as her thumb hovers over the screen. Emma clicks only to find a locked profile. The profile photo is a company logo. The Usula Crooked Tree Company. A quick search gives her a location.

Purisima, California. 

* * *

Regina presses her forehead against the window. The Sun is starting to make its presence felt, making the day so clear. The way back to Purisima should have been under the cover of night. Not filled with early sunshine and passing seagulls. She takes deep breaths as Jacinda hands over the phone to Henry. Her son, her son. Regina has to think she’s doing this for him.

“Las tias say we’re spending today and tomorrow in the city. And that there is no temple today?” He says it all with a degree of suspicion. “Mom, why aren’t you coming with us?

“There is something I need to deal with, sweetheart.” She dares to glance back, at the body under the blanket. “But you’ll have so much fun! Want to tell me what you’re doing?” 

Zelena gives her a curious look. Regina remembers that this isn’t a side of hers she knows too well. Not beyond double tapping on photos of Henry’s birthday parties. He goes through a list of things. Kite flying at the bay, noodles for lunch. The museum in the afternoon and Regina listens to it all. Doesn’t dare interrupt any of it so she can cling to every bit of normalcy she has left. Until he hands over the phone back to Jacinda. 

  
“Regina, are you in trouble?” She asks in a low voice. “We’ll drop everything--”

“No. It’s fine.” No need to get them involved. To bring more of her family into this mess. “Zelena and I just need the house to ourselves. That’s all.” 

“OK.” Jacinda doesn’t sound convinced but Regina can hear Sabine calling her name. “Pero me llamas, if you need us.” 

“I will.” Regina lies with her stomach in a knot. “Bye.” 

“Quite the support system you’ve got.” It’s more of a mumble coming from Zelena. 

For a moment, just one moment Regina allows herself to feel resentment. To bite her tongue as she does. Because there are still some four hours to go. Miles and miles between them and Purisima. Between them and mother’s tearoom. Regina only lowers her window and lets the wind sweep away the smell of rum and death festering inside. She imagines herself in great depths, with her head under water. Trying to drown out her desperation. Great, dark depths where the last night doesn’t matter. Up, down. Up,down. Like the crashing of the waves. The image takes her away even as she gets back in the driver’s seat. 

Up, down. Up, down. As they border the sea. As they approach Purisima and it feels like fear and guilt might choke the life out of her. It’s strange that the house is at the top of the hill, waiting for them just the same. As if they had been coming back as girls. 

“This place doesn’t change.” Zelena says as she readjusts her sunglasses. 

“I suppose not.” She replies, relieved that the car isn’t raising too many eyebrows. 

Regina keeps the engine quiet up the hill. Slow enough that it might also blend with the town. Until she is backing away into the garage, careful as to not bump into Henry and Lucy’s bikes. Her sister steps out of the car and takes a look around. Presses her lips into a thin line and says nothing about it. Regina wouldn’t want to hear it. 

“Quickly,” Her sister pulls down her seat, “Before the smell gets too bad.” 

The body is heavy. Regina has to cover her mouth to push him out of the seat. To roll him onto a carpet and drag it across the tiled floor. Into mother’s tearoom. The room has sat untouched and unused for ten years. The smell of sulfur and candle wax still permeates its wall. The white and knit tablecloth Regina hadn’t had the courage to throw out. Zelena is quick to pull the drapes closed and light a black candle in an iron holder. 

“So, how are we bringing him back? Any spell of mother's that might do the trick?”

Regina clenches her fists because death, she knows. She had told Zelena as much when she first suggested this idea. Countless hours have been poured into understanding it, how to undo curses and spells that would cause it. The inevitable end. 

“I told you, necromancy simply isn’t --”

“I know what you told me,” She pulls out a jar of preserved scorpions. “But I’m not sure if it’s just you and whatever some men five thousand years ago think is forbidden.” 

“You don’t know what you’re talking about.” 

“What about your little roommates? Doesn’t one of them call herself mamman?” The way Zelena looks at her, with those narrowed eyes. With her lips quirked to the side. Equal parts hurt and angry. “I’m sure a voodoo queen would know what to do” 

“ _No._ ” Up, down. Up, down. Her heart is in her throat. “You and I, we fix this alone.” 

“Can we get to work or not?” 

Regina rubs her temples and tries to steady herself for what she’s about to do. Asks for silent forgiveness. For taking what does not belong to her and twisting it. What she can only seen Sabine do from afar. She searches for some chalk to draw a crude veve on the floor. With none of Sabine’s finesse but with hesitation. 

“This might not work, Zelena,” She tells her, dusting her hands off. “Possession isn’t nearly the same as--”

“We have to try. If not, we just killed a man.” Zelena takes the chalk off her hands to retrace the symbols. “Do you really want to spend whatever time you have left with your son locked away in some prison?”

“Do not bring him into this!” Regina is ready to leave. Ready to leave Zelena sort this out for herself. “You call and tell me...tell me you’re in trouble--”

“I’m sorry. I’m sorry.” She swallows something back and takes her hand. “Sis. Please.” 

Her sister is back to being frightened. It terrifies Regina to know that. To see fear in the face of someone who laughed off warnings and threats. It makes her scared for her son. That she might be taken away from him and that he might grow up to hate her. Wonder why she had cursed him to live at all. Regina stays, it's her only choice. Repeats the words she has overheard from Sabine, opens the room up for the crossing of spirits. Knocks on the floor, on the markings on it. Spirits, spirits who might cross over return. Killian Jones crossover, crossover and possess your body. Take it and do what you will with it. 

The whispers come, slither into her body. Into her blood. Not for you, not for you. They tell her, they squeeze at her lungs. It is not a game to ask them in, to ask that they take over flesh. Close the gate while you can. Get out, get out. But Regina presses forward with Zelena’s hands on her own and she asks that Killian Jones return. Into the blood still left in his veins. Drink. Walk far away from them. 

A grunt cuts through the whispers. Another and the lights flicker. 

Zelena pulls away and uncovers the body. His pale skin, the sickly look to him. Up, down. Up, down. His eyes are looking straight at them, milky in their blue. Awake, not alive. But awake. 

“You, you!” He jerks up and reaches Zelena’s neck with unnatural strength. “Come down with me, love!” 

Her sister tries to push him away, claw her way out of his grasp but it’s no use. Regina reaches for one of mother’s candlesticks and hits him upside the head with it. He drops, the milky blue turning into grey. Dead. Again. 

“Shit.” Zelena groans as she rubs at her neck. 

* * *

They’d buried him. Waited for the cover of night and drove to the old burial site. Overlooking the water, where purple flowers grow over the dead. They’d dug until six feet into the ground. Killed the flowers with their shovels and blistered the palms of their hands. Zelena had gotten on her knees and retched next to the car. Regina had leaned against it, dropped down to the ground. Not knowing what to feel. Besides screaming in the back of her mind. 

Regina has no memory of driving back to the house. Of undressing and turning on the water. Filling the bathroom with steam. All she knows is that she has been scrubbing at her nails, between her fingers to the point of pain. She doesn’t cry. It’s like she’s forgotten to, as if her mind has decided there isn’t time for it. Because it’s closer to dawn than to night. Her son will be walking through the front door tomorrow, wrapping his arms around her. Life has to go on. As normal, as if she hadn’t just buried a body. There are still edges off sandwiches to be cut, math homework she needs to go over. PTA meetings and. Fuck. 

Tomorrow’s bake sale at the pier. Fifty chocolate chip cookies for Roland’s class. She had promised Marian after all. Her life, the one she is supposed to return to, depends on it. Break this promise and she’ll break the next and the one after that. She turns the water off and finds something to wear. The fabric sticks to her half wet back. The old stairs creak as she goes down. Like they always have. The floor is cold underneath her feet, enough to keep her feeling something. Her nose picks up on a smell, one she’d gotten used to when she and Daniel lived in that small place in New Haven.

Her sister is sitting at the kitchen table, with a cup of tea and tightly rolled joint in between her fingers. 

“Want some?” Her voice is still hoarse from his hands around her throat. Eyes red and lips swollen with a darkening cut. 

“Why not?” Regina sighs as she accepts it and inhales. “It’s been a minute.” 

“I bet.” Zelena sips her tea and doesn’t note the hour. 

Doesn’t question the flour or the eggs. The chocolate or how she does not return the joint. How Regina keeps it on a saucer and comes back to it every few seconds. By the time the kitchen smells of melted sugar and vanilla Regina’s shoulders have relaxed. Her eyes have gotten heavy and she feels that scream, that voice, simmer down to a murmur. Perhaps it’s el monte but Regina wonders if there was anyone who might have heard her call. Someone who’d listened for it and tried to find her. 

No. Red thread and rosemary would sooner find her the impossible than have the universe grant her anything.

* * *

Rock bottom had always been a concept that had shifted year to year for Emma. At seventeen it’d been sitting in a cell because a man had abandoned her to the wolves. At twenty-eight it’s sitting on a toilet of some chain restaurant. Not being able to move. Paralyzed with sweat running down her back. She’d come in to clean herself, spray cold water on her face. But then something had invaded her chest. It’d felt like a kick and the lights had flickered. Or at least, Emma had thought they did. And whispers, whispers everywhere. In her blood. Over them she could hear that desperate voice again. Emma’s blood is still rushing, wild. The whole of her shakes, it’s like a sickness. That revolting feeling in her stomach. 

“What’s going on?” She asks, knowing not to expect an answer. 

The voice flares up as the whispers die and drip out of her. One, two. In, out. There are still hours left in her drive to Purisima. Emma reaches to unlock the door as she feels a tremor run down to her hands. It doesn’t feel like this, whatever it is, will pass any time soon. It’s a feat getting to her feet. Managing to splash water on her face and dry herself off with a paper towel. The door swings open and Emma has to swallow back her heart. Everything is setting off her fight or flight instincts. It’s only a woman coming to wash her hands. She closes her eyes and tries to make her pulse settle down. Settle down so she can follow that voice. 

It’s no use. 

Emma ends up dragging herself to a booth and actually looking at a menu. Ordering. Pouring ketchup on her plate. Feeling something like guilt dropping down to her stomach. She eats through it. She believes for a moment if she has lost her mind. If that thing inside finally broke like a foster father threatened it would. Right now she is no one. Just a woman chasing after things that might not be there. Because that is better than accepting that she failed Zelena Mills. Emma sits in that booth until her knees don’t give. Hours, maybe. There is no way to be sure. Eventually, with the whole of her aching, Emma decides to drive again. 

The voice never leaves her. Not even as Emma borders the sea. Not with the waves hitting the rock. Not even as the sun goes down and she has parked near the shore of Purisima. In a barely lit street, with the sky and water promising to swallow her. Emma’s eyes close here. She sleeps and dreams of the dirt underneath her fingernails. Stubborn, red dirt that the bristles in her brush can’t reach. Hot water and melted sugar. 

Sugar that slowly blends with salt and the scent of the Sun.

It hurts to open her eyes, to feel brightness bounce off her mirrors. People are going past her car with baskets and blankets under their arms. They talk about nothing, about the ice in their cooler.And the book they won’t have time for today. It feels wrong, somehow. Sunday, she remembers. Today is Sunday. Time does not stand still, not like she does. Emma rinses her teeth with some warm water in her car before stepping out and facing Purisima. 

It’s the kind of town that pretends the unthinkable can never happen. With its colors and vintage ice cream trucked parked a block away from the water. The umbrellas and the pink bodies getting pinker on the hot sand. Emma knows she is out of place. With her jacket and her dirty clothes. Her boots sink into the sand as she attempts a walk on the beach. Her no-plan had landed her here, to sunken ankles. Having any sense left in the inner working of her mind would mean heading to Purisima’s mainstreet and finding the Usula and Crooked Tree Company. Instead Emma reaches the place where the tide recedes and walks towards the pier. The voice mumbles, mutters. Nothing Emma can make out but can feel in every inch of her skin. 

  
  


The day gets louder too. Kids are laughing and running after each other all around her. Music that is obviously for the parents. This moment. This snapshot of a Sunday was something Emma always thought impossible. Pancakes being flipped, mothers wearing tinted glasses and holding spatulas. An orange juice station and another serving freshly made smoothies. It’s hard to reconcile it with the desperation ringing in her mind. The games being played at the far side of the pier, the popping balloons. All part of a fantasy. Growing up in hand-me-downs and sitting in circles at group homes, Emma never had the ambition to think of something like this. To believe a place like this existed. 

Up, down. Up, down. Emma rubs at her chest like it might ease the nervous beating inside it. She keeps walking without knowing what to look for. Past the women selling quinoa muffins and kale quiches. Away from the meditation camp. From the crafts table. 

To the smell of melted sugar and chocolate.

And. 

It’s when Emma sees her. Someone she might have wished for. Dark hair that does not reach her shoulders. A sort of grace in her expression that can’t be taken away. The kind that Emma always assumed couldn’t exist. Up, down. Up, down. Beat, beat. Blood pumps into her chest, runs everywhere when the woman’s eyes find her. Stay with Emma for a second. And in that second the voice grows still. 

The whole world does.


	4. Chapter 4

It aches when Regina wakes up. Her chest, as if someone had been sitting on it all night. She takes a gulp of water from the glass she keeps by her bed. It’s early, even for her. Monday, where the world picks up again and she has to be a part of it. Regina could lie down again, lie there with her beating heart. Think about belladonna, veves and disturbed earth. Let her thoughts grow louder and louder. But she had done Sunday. With the smiles she had learned to give under mother’s eye. Had done Sunday and lied to Marian as she tied her apron. Lied about a road trip with her sister. Midnight Margaritas that never happened. Regina can do Monday.

Waffles, there is time for them. For cracking eggs and measuring out vinegar. For cutting fruit and whipping up cream. For setting the table and busying herself with chores. Writing remainders and working out schedules. 

“Mom?” Henry says, standing at the foot of the stairs. Taking an exaggerated whiff of the air. “Do I smell waffles and orange syrup?”

“Quite on the nose you have on you, young man,” Regina doesn’t have to try and smile for him. One always blooms out, no matter the hour. “They’re extra crunchy too.” 

“On a Monday?” He walks closer and stifles out a yawn.

“To make up for the day I missed.” She kisses the top of his head and wraps an arm around him. 

There isn’t a day where she does feel her heart grow for him. Where she does not make room for it. Not a day where Regina isn’t afraid for him. 

“Does that mean I can skip school today?” Henry grins up at her. “To make up for Saturday?” 

“I’m afraid my powers don’t extend that far,” Regina laughs and pours herself a cup of coffee. “Go let everyone know breakfast is ready.”

He nods and pads towards the stairs. Stops right before he can take the first step.

“BREAKFAST IS READY!” It might have taken all the air in the room to say. 

“Henry Daniel Mills, that is _not_ what I meant.” 

Her son shrugs his shoulders and smiles sheepishly. Far too aware of himself. 

It isn’t long before Lucy is rushing downstairs and Jacinda is telling her to go find her chanclas before she even tries anything. 

“Lucky us you decided against cooking for a living,” Sabine tells her as she grabs a mug from the cupboard. “Used the chicory brew?”

“It is Monday.” Regina says as she sits at the head of the table. “We need all the help we can get.” 

“Mhmm.” There is a look to Sabine, as if something just occurred to her. But it’s gone as quickly as it came.

Gone as she lines up the fruit on her plate. Dusts sugar over her plate, drizzles enough to syrup to form equally spaced lines. It’s nearing seven and today could be normal. With Henry and Lucy stealing pieces of fruit off each other’s plates. Sabine and Jacinda go over that book they’re supposed to have read for their book club as they refill their cups. Normal, back to the way things were before Friday night. Regina should know better.

“I didn’t know breakfast was included.” Zelena appears wearing one of her robes. 

“You’re up.” Regina tells her as her mind gets louder. 

“Should I not be?” Her sister laughs and sits at the empty place at her right. “Morning all.”

“Tia Zelena?” Henry hesitates with a half full mouth. 

“The one and only.” She winks at him and helps herself to some waffles.

It marks today as the start of something different. Normal, normal had been a short lived illusion. Regina breathes in as her eyes stay on her sister, knowing what it is she must be thinking. Breakfast with mother meant zumos and fiber while they wore their school clothes. Mother and her perfectly done hair. Not Jacinda’s loose bun and Sabine’s still under a handkerchief. Henry and Lucy undressed and swinging their bare feet from their chairs. Zelena had managed to avoid meeting them until now, staying out all Sunday, coming back late into the night. Regina had heard drop onto her mattress, as if they still were teenagers. 

“What happened to your face?” Lucy asks leaning back to get a good look at her.

“Sara Lucia!” Jacinda scolds her and then looks apologetically at her sister.

“I wrestled a crocodile.” 

“Did you win at least?” Henry quirks his brow at her.

Zelena throws her head back and laughs again. Sabine tilts her head at the sound of it, that look on her face again. Regina fears what it is she finds, what she isn’t saying. But it passes too. Perhaps she is only seeing things, it's just the guilt that eats her from the inside out. It’s best to focus on how her son seems to take to Zelena, how he hangs to her every word. This could work, for however long her sister decides to stay in their lives. The noise of her thoughts and the cold guilt permanently settled in her stomach say otherwise.

The cold spreads and spreads as she makes her way to the store. Zelena vaguely promised to consider working at the store, if nothing better came up. It worries her. Everything does. Regina tries to assure the ever growing noise that she will find a way to contain it. Or live with it. She has to. Regina sets out to have a morning like any other. Ask Marian how the cookies fared with the mothers of Roland’s year. Start on the hierbabuena hand cream. Unmold the basil soap bars and set others to cure. If it weren’t for the loudness plaguing her, drawing everything out, Regina could pretend. Could find a way to make this her life again. 

“Hey, I’m going to get some coffee, want anything?” Marian asks from the front. 

“I’m OK.” She replies, as she swirls the purple into the white in a mixture. 

“Do you want milk in that?”

“Marian…” Regina almost laughs and is relieved to discover it can still happen.. 

“Be nice while I’m gone!” 

The door closes and she takes a second to breathe. To try and stand still and ask for a moment’s peace. In, out. Up, down. The bell says otherwise. Regina peels the gloves off her hands and puts on her best customer face. 

And. 

Quiet. Stillness. 

The silence Regina had thought a fluke. The woman she had seen yesterday at the pier. Standing here looking through her shelves. Red leather jacket and blonde hair combed back into a ponytail. There is something about her. The woman smells different soaps, closed eyes. It might be a secret tenderness. That something shining out of her. 

“They weren’t kidding about this place.” She says holding onto a Jasmine bar. 

“They?” Regina asks just now realizing they hadn’t spoken a word. “Who is ‘they’?”

“Online reviews.” The woman looks at her and it’s like she can’t help herself. “Though nine dollars for a bar of soap?” 

Because of the stillness of her mind Regina can furrow her brow. Take offense at that. 

“You get what you pay for,” She tries to be nice, tries her best customer voice. “ Jasmine soap might help with that dry skin.” 

“Ouch. Point taken.” The woman says with an earnestness that gets under Regina’s skin. “Do I pair it with something?” 

“Ideally with the lotion and shampoo of the same line.” 

Against her better judgement Regina walks over and retrieves the lotion. It’s hard to say why she cares, why it matters what she thinks of her. Regina pops the cap open and the stranger offers her hand for Regina to trace a line on the back of it. Carefully, Regina uses two fingers to rub the faint yellow until it disappears on her skin. Regina, she can’t even remember what the voice sounds like. It had been so loud before. So unrelenting before this stranger, this woman had walked in. Who lifts her hand to her nose and smiles. The pale green of her eyes made brighter by the light. 

“Smells like a hundred bucks.” 

Regina sucks in a breath but cannot keep from rolling her eyes. She walks back to the register and figures it’s the best way of snapping at her. Again. 

“I’m sure it’s worth it.” The woman walks up to the counter and lays them all down. “I’m Emma by the way. Swan. Emma Swan.” 

“Regina.” She scans the items, wraps them more carefully than she usually would. “Are you just passing through?”

“Can’t wait to get rid of me, huh?” Emma Swan shakes her head and smiles with that irritating sincerity. “Um no. I’m staying for a while. Taking a short break.”

“And let me guess, the city is a bit much?” Regina says dryly as she taps her card on the reader. 

She bites into her lip and Regina has to look away from her gaze. 

“Is the pizza place in town any good?”

“No.” Her lips stretch into what feels like a smirk. Because Regina cannot restrain herself. “Though I’m sure Yelp could have you told that.” 

“Ha, still it’s good to hear it from a reliable source.” She drums her fingers on the counter and smiles for good measure. “I’ll see you around.” 

Regina nods and hears the voice slowly begin to drift in. Louder and Louder with each step Emma Swan takes towards the door. By the time she is out of her sight it’s all consuming.

* * *

The kettle on the stove is boiling, whistling with steam. Emma would move to turn off the fire but she has the sensations that it wouldn’t go over well. Mary Margaret minds it if Emma acts like anything but a guest. She suspects this is more about the experience of playing the host than about needing the money. It’s a spacious two bedroom painted yellow and white. The bed and breakfast would’ve meant more privacy but it’s all about her budget. Emma is more like a glorified roommate but Mary Margaret won’t hear it. Has her sitting at the table, munching at oatmeal cookies and waiting to be served.

“Did you manage to see the Warblers I told you about?” She pours Emma a cup of tea that is too flowery for her taste. 

“Um, no. The day kind of got away from me. Didn’t really have time to do some bird watching.”

“You did some shopping?” Mary Margaret says as she nods towards the Usula and Crooked Tree bag on the counter as she takes a seat.

“I..yeah,” Emma scratches the back of her head. “That’s the thing with spontaneous breaks, you kinda forget to pack the essentials.” 

“You can’t do better than them. Their stuff works miracles. The lavender cream? Puts me right out when I’m having trouble sleeping.” 

“We’ll see how Jasmine works out,” She suddenly feels self conscious, warm down to her chest. This whole town seems to leagues away from anything that brought her up. That impossible place that Emma never dreamed of. “I don’t usually go for stuff like that but I put my foot in my mouth with the owner.” 

“I wouldn't worry too much about that. Marian has the sunniest---”

“Marian?” 

“Oh. You meant Regina.” Mary Margaret puts her mug down and leans in. “How did you find her?”

Emma takes a sip from the flowery tea and keeps herself from grimacing. She needs to pretend that her mind isn’t still reeling. That it isn’t pushing itself to keep the sensation of her fingers on her skin. That she hadn’t gone into the store with a secret motive. 

“Um, how do you mean?” 

“She can be a little...prickly. Especially at PTA meetings.” Mary Margaret clears her throat and breaks a piece off a cookie. “I was a few grades behind her in school. Her mother was in the Rotary Club with mine, she was always so sweet to me. But Regina and Zelena, they pretty much kept to themselves.” 

“Zelena?” Up. Down. There is too much sound inside her now, too much of a pulse to everything. 

“Her older sister,” The smallness of her smile gives her away, Mary Margaret is enjoying this more than she lets on. “Left town with a boy before she even graduated high school. It was a big scandal back then but Mrs. Mills took it in stride. She’s back in town now, I hear.”

“Must be visiting.” Emma breathes out the words and hopes it goes unnoticed. Zelena Mills is alive. Safe.

“I guess so. I had always assumed they’d been estranged with all the rumors going around.” 

“What kind of rumors?” It’s a feat to look only mildly interested, to act like it isn’t her whole purpose for coming to Purisima. There are more questions than answers.

“Small town stuff,” She laughs and waves her hand in front of her face. “Like Mrs. Mills was secretly a witch and that Zelena left because Regina had been chosen as the heir. It certainly didn’t help when the town found out about Regina’s inheritance. All crazy stuff that maybe had a pinch of truth to it but you know, _crazy._ ” 

“Yeah,” The noise, the voice that grows quiet when she is with Regina Mills, seems to explode inside her. “Crazy.” 

* * *

Breaking in new shoes in a walk around Purisima has not been one of Emma’s brightest ideas. By Wednesday the sole of her boots was coming off and she bought the first pair she thought would do. They’re tight around her toes and she thinks this whole thing qualifies as ridiculous, Crazy even. Mary Margaret’s words have been stuck in her mind for a day, fighting. Clashing with the loudness. The loudness that not even Purisima’s crashing waves can drown out. Not like Regina Mills did.

It’s not rational. Not a thing Emma should entertain but considers as she explores the town. Not knowing what she is expecting to find. White Spanish colonials with SUVs parked outside them. Women jogging as they push strollers and too many chalk drawings about brunch offers. Emma keeps walking because the voice is as strong as ever. She follows the ocean downhill, down the curves. Until colors change. Houses are wooden. Smaller and the streets are busier. The change had been subtle, she could have missed it had she not been looking for it. The afternoon breeze picks up and it isn’t logical. It smells of flowers and every part of her. Every cell making up Emma’s body tells her to follow it. 

Cross streets with blind faith. With the kind of conviction she seldom feels. It does not matter if her feet ache, if her mind drowns out the world. Emma walks until she sees violets. Buckets of them and so many other flowers she can’t name. A woman in a wicker hat sits at the corner, wrapping bouquets in newspaper. Her skin is dark brown, she barely registers what her fingers are doing as she speaks into a phone. Emma steps closer and sees that hers is the first stall. Rows and rows of flowers stretch inside a building. It all draws her in.

The sounds, carts being wheeled down hallways. People talking over each other. Haggling. The smell of wet dirt and perfume. Mary Margaret had said nothing about this place. Had left out of pointers. Never mentioned anything beyond bakeries and birds. Emma can pretend, just for now, for the minutes she spends here, that she is who she says is. Someone who needed to get away, who needed to figure her life out. It’s the flowers that smell like sand and sunscreen that give her pause. They’re like nothing Emma has ever seen. Barely yellow and a dark pink lining the very end of their petals. An ache settles in her chest, like roots. Roots that have nowhere to sprout. Like belonging. And all the related wishes. 

“How much for these?” Emma asks the girl wrapping what seems to be a carpet of poppies. 

“Three for three, friend.” The girl replies as she uses her teeth to cut tape and then whistles. “Tita!” 

She doesn’t know what business she has picking flowers. What she would even do with them, Emma has never been the kind. As her fingers carefully wrap themselves around a handful the loudness echoes away. Emma looks up, knowing what it she hopes to find. Who. 

“Are these the twenty pounds, Stefany?” Regina Mills asks, right across from where she stands.

Still. Everything would remain still if all Emma could see were her. But someone stands next to her, thick sunglasses that cover her eyes. Zelena Mills. In a flowy dress, sleeves that reach her wrists. A wide hat that makes her look like a postcard from another decade. 

“Twenty pounds?!” She puts her hands on her waist. “And we’re supposed to carry them all the way back to the car?” 

“If you weren’t going to be of any help why come at all?” Regina tucks her hair behind an ear. 

And.

Their eyes meet. Here in the middle of everything. With Emma’s heart pounding, beating. Following a rhythm that is becoming familiar to her. 

“I forgot how dreadfully boring this town is.” Zelena looks back at her sister, and smirks. Like she might have guessed something. “Or not.” 

Emma is awkward in her steps, not knowing how to disguise them. How to pretend she is anything but interested. 

“Hi,” She breathes the scent of the market as her eyes settle on Regina Mills. “This place is amazing.” 

“Flower markets tend to be that way,” Regina does not look at her as she pulls out some bills from her purse. “How is the over-priced soap working out for you?” 

“Great, actually.” It’s so quiet in her mind that Emma can feel herself smiling. 

“Better than the knock-offs in Mary Margaret Blanchard’s welcome basket, at least.” She spares a glance before nodding at something Stefany says. 

“How do you know I’m staying there?” 

“You must have mentioned it.” Regina rolls her eyes as her sister nudges her ribs. 

“I’m pretty sure I didn’t.” _Witch._ Mary Margaret’s echo from one end to the other. 

“People talk, pet. You’re the shiny new thing in town,” Zelena Mills forgets herself lifts her sunglasses to look at her. “Word still out if you’re interesting or not.”

_“Zelena._ ” Regina says as she slaps her arm. “Not the place, not the time.” 

“What? You’d rather say it behind her back?” So unconcerned by anything.

Emma has to wonder if Sheila and Carmen were the same way. If they had a quick tongue too. If they laughed until they couldn’t. Her stomach twists at the thought.

“If you don’t mind me asking, how did they happen?” On instinct Emma taps her lips and cheek where they mirror Zelena’s injuries. “I’m sorry if that--”

“Oh, they’re nothing to worry about.” Zelena says, shrugging a shoulder. “He isn’t a problem anymore.” 

“Good.” Emma means it. Means that she is glad that she is here. Hiding under sunglasses and bickering with her sister. That she isn’t another file in a box that will sit to gather dust. 

But that leaves the question as to what happened to Jones. If he truly is long gone. If he is not still out there where she can’t find him. Biding his time, just waiting to return. 

Regina shifts her eyes to her sister and then to Emma. Bites her lips and Emma can't do anything but look. 

“I wouldn’t have taken you for a Plumeria type” Regina says pointing at the flowers Emma is holding. The evasiveness doesn’t escape her, the attempt to distract away from more questions.

“Is that what they’re called?” She can play this part, even if Emma is not sure if she is even pretending. “Not sunscreen flowers?”

It seems to move on its own, Emma’s outstretched arm. Irrational, like an instinct. To offer up the flowers. The world goes still again when Regina bends to breathe them in. For that second where it’s only her. Eyes dark and hints of a smile. 

“Not sunscreen flowers.” Regina says before the spell is broken. When the sounds of the market return and it isn’t just them alone in the world. 

“Anything else, tita?” Stefany asks, as she hands her a receipt. “Some flor de ginger?”

“Next week, perhaps. Thank you, querida.” She grabs one end of the package full of poppies. “ _Zelena._ ” 

“Alright, alright.” Zelena rolls her eyes and takes the other end and lifts.

“Do you need help with that?” 

It’s selfish of Emma, to not want to let her go. To stay in her orbit for as long as she can. Because of the way everything inside her settles. Because of the scent of flowers and those roots begging to grow inside her chest. 

“Don’t bother. It’s why she brought me along.” She throws a wink as she walks past Emma. “I’ve got to work for my wages, apparently.” 

“Yes, I am exploiting your labor.” Regina looks as if she wants to hide her face but has nowhere to put it. “Goodbye.” 

She waves and forces herself to look away. To reach for the cash in her pocket and pay for the flowers. Leave and think about this for the rest of the day. 

“It’s six dollars, right?” 

Stefany smiles and sighs. Like Emma has missed the joke. 

“She already paid for them.” Stefany says taking the flowers and wrapping them together. “Come back next week and maybe you can buy _her_ flowers.” 

Emma bobs her head as the world becomes less still. Less quiet. Little by Little. 

* * *

Regina has tried to make sense of it. How the stubborn whirlwind of sound and noise inside her mind seems to quiet down around Emma Swan. Her racing heart, the warmth at the back of her neck. This need to push her. Have her attention. How it terrifies her too. Like a wildfire.The rising tide that she is not willing to fight. Regina thinks of red thread and quarters between her fingers but the voice out in the open air drowns out that thought. That possibility. 

They reach the car and she suddenly feels exhausted. Heavy down to her feet as they place the poppies in the trunk. 

“Now where you had been keeping her?” Zelena asks as she leans against the car. “Never figured you to go for blondes.” 

“What?” Regina rubs at her temples. “She is not...She’s a stranger.” 

“Of course she is. And you are dying to know more about her.” Her sister readjusts her sunglasses. “It’s why you slipped and accidentally did a little mind reading.” 

“Zelena, what on Earth are you on about? I did not....”

Except she had. Reina had taken one look at her, recognized the scent of Jasmine and not stopped herself. From seeing Mary Margaret Blanchard and the welcome basket on white duvet. 

“Shit.” She pinches her eyes closed. “I didn’t even notice I was doing it.” 

“You’re lucky I covered for you,” Her sister laughs. “Only an outsider would believe I listen to the town gossip.” 

Regina half glares at her and unlocks her door. Zelena quickly follows and doesn’t bother with the seat belt.

“You know, it’s funny? I feel like I’ve seen your girlfriend before.” 

“She’s not my girlfriend, tonta.” 

“I can’t place her though.” Zelena attempts to light a cigarette before Regina snatches it away. “What did you say her name was?”

“I’m not giving you her name so you can cyberstalk her.” Regina wants to get home and not have to listen to this anymore. 

“Relax, I’m not looking to buy her flowers.” She laughs just as Regina feels heat lighting up her face. “So…”

“Ay Zelena, por la puta.” It’s like she is thirteen and trying to keep her sister out of her room. “Her name is Emma Swan, happy?” 

“Very.” Zelena pulls out her phone from her pocket and has the decency to let her be for a while. 

But there is no stillness. Nothing quiet about the drive. Not when her blood runs and runs all through her body. When she thinks of loose blonde hair and that thin sheen of sweat on Emma Swan’s neck. Regina had felt it. The way her gaze never left her. It’d burned and burned. Not the fluttering stomach and a racing heart she’d known as a girl. This, this is steady fire. 

Nearing a stoplight her sister smacks her arm so suddenly that Regina gasps and hits the brakes with too much force. The car behind them honks and some pedestrians stare as they cross the street.

“Regina, _mierda_. I knew it!” Judging from the tone in Zelena’s voice and the chill on her own skin, it isn’t a joke. “She’s a fucking cop.” 

“What?!” 

“From Arizona.I saw her at a station once,” Zelena’s eyes speed through whatever she has found. “I think she might have been working on a case involving Killian.”

“That’s why she asked about your black eye.” Her heart beats as it reminds her of all she could lose. “Great. We’re screwed.” 

“No, no. It says here ‘former detective.’” Her hand reaches for Regina’s wrist. “We just have to play it cool until she gets bored and leaves.” 

Up, down. Up, down. Regina is all pulse and noise. 

“You can do that, right?” She can hear the desperation grow in Zelena’s words. “ _Regina.”_

She doesn’t have an answer to that. 


	5. Chapter 5

The sheets are cold. Drenched in her sweat. The Plumeria are in one of Mary Margaret’s vases, they look almost purple in the early morning light. They ground her, keep her head from spinning. Emma thinks she might have been having a nightmare judging by the pounding in her chest. The echo in her head. She moves to the edge of the bed and tries to make it out. Tries to recall what it had been. Whispers in her blood. Dead, milky eyes. Flies and dirt under her fingernails. The air in the room suddenly feels stale, almost rotten. A bitter taste in her mouth. Rough and burning her throat, the flesh at the sides of her mouth. 

Fresh air, Emma needs fresh air. Needs to run until she can’t breathe. 

Her feet go sockless into the old running shoes she keeps in the Bug. Black running shorts, a sports bra new from a package. The air needs to hit her skin, cut her as she runs. It’s what she always did. Even as a kid, wait for first light and run. Run to forget she was hungry. Afraid. Run after pocketing food from a store. To catch that bus to Arizona. Run straight into disaster and away from the patrol car that eventually got her. She had even run laps at juvie in hopes to prove herself to the warden who had promised her a future. 

Now her muscles stretch and retract with the coolness of the air because it’s about the one thing she can do. 

Emma sets out to find the shore. Away along the closed shops and sleepy households. She tries to reason with the noise, ask that it tell her something. Anything. But it never does. It only rises, and rises like the tide. The questions only mingle and twist with it. Play in the background to the memory of her nightmare. If Zelena Mills is safe, if she is alive, then where has Jones gone? _Whispers in her blood._ From what she knows from the files on Sheila and Carmen he was not the type to change his mind. To let his victim walk away. _Dead, milky eyes._ But if he had, if Zelena had somehow gotten away, what does that mean? _Dirt, red under her nails._

The water filters into her sneakers as she runs and Emma can’t bring herself to care. To curse it. She keeps running wondering what the hell she is even doing. Out here facing cliffs and towering rocks in the water. While Jones could be out there, lying low. Bile burns her throat as she thinks of him. Banging the rings on his fingers on the metal table in the interrogation room. The pats on the back he’d get from officers. How the department apologized. More than once. If there is a chance he might return then Emma has to stay. Stand guard and make sure he doesn’t hurt anyone else. 

The sea hits her ankles, pulls and pulls at her. Up, down. Emma would be lying to herself if she didn’t admit it. That she wishes she had a reason to stay. And feel the whole world stop because of Regina Mills. She’d be lying if she said she understood it, this pull. Whatever is going on inside her, rushing through her. Sand sticks to her ankles and sweat rolls down her back as the Sun rises. Her whole life, there has never been something that compares. If there is magic out in the world, maybe this is what it feels like. This ache, this need. Growing and growing inside her.

Emma breathes, feels the salt burn her throat as she looks up. A lonely house up on a hillside. A colonial like most other houses. A large garden circles it, if she squints her eyes she can make out the yellows and oranges of the flowers. She decides to slip out of her wet sneakers and slow her pace as she goes. Wondering about the occupants of the house, if it’s the Sun or the water that wakes them up in the morning. Emma feels those roots stretching in her chest as she imagines life there. Life here. The noise seems to be moving, dancing with the waves, fading away. 

If Emma is smiling, she has no control over it. Over her feet moving her closer and closer to a figure up ahead. Knees deep in the water. Regina Mills in the water, black silk sticking to her skin. Maybe, maybe those roots are pulsating. Yearning for firmer ground. Regina dips her hands in the water. One, two, three times. Covers her eyes and then scrubs at her face. Even if the world is quiet and the bitterness is gone from her mouth Emma feels this moment isn’t meant for her to see. But she only sinks into the wet sand when Regina finds her. 

That irrational thing, that thing that settles when Emma is near her pulls her towards her. To meet her as she leaves the water. 

“Up early too?” Emma asks as she sucks in a breath. 

Water drips down Regina’s chin, the ends of her hair curl with it. The way she is looking at Emma, how her gaze wanders down. How Regina presses her lips into a thin line and her chest rises unsteadily. It makes Emma burn. Out here, so close to the water. 

“Nothing gets past you,” She replies, looking as if she had no control over her words. “With that keen sense of observation of yours.” 

It could mean something. Mean that the Mills sisters have figured her out. Did a quick search and found the truth. Emma can pretend, can keep up the act. She shakes her head and laughs. 

“It’s better like this, when the day hasn’t really started.” Emma says shrugging her shoulders. “Quiet.” 

“Worlds away from Phoenix, I take it?” The sharpness of her tone leaves no room for doubt.

“Uh, you looked me up?” She says as she shields her eyes from the rising Sun. “Should I feel flattered?”

Regina runs her fingers through her hair and scoffs. 

“My sister did.” It isn’t a lie, Emma can feel it in the air. “She has far too much time on her hands. Anything will catch her attention.” 

“Is that all it is?”

The air shifts, picks up strength. Emma feels it all. The morning breeze, the sand crystals scratching at her skin. The sweat running down her back and the hammering of her heart. 

“It’s not every day that a disgraced cop moves into town,” She goes back to eyeing her, her breath shallow. “And lies about it.” 

“I never lied.” Emma decides to not comment on _disgraced_. She hasn’t had time to care what her old department is putting out there. “I needed a break and that’s what I’m doing.” 

“That’s one long drive for a break.” Regina unfolds her arms and picks up her skirts. “I hope it’s all worth it.” 

“We’ll see.” 

The noise filters in, like if a window had just been opened, as Regina takes a step away from her. Emma isn’t ready for it, not when her breathing is shallow. Her head light. Regina turns away from her and Emma doesn’t think. 

“Thanks for the flowers.” It’s a cheap provocation and all it does is make Regina pause before walking away.

* * *

Regina had woken up with her heart in her throat. Beating and beating. Burning. It had been dark outside and she had been scared to go down to the kitchen for a glass of water. She hadn’t been able to close her eyes again. Just lied in the dark thinking of dead eyes. Milky and blue. The flies that had landed in those eyes. How dirt had gotten deep into her nails. It’d felt like a fever, the guilt. Regina had thought of papi, about the family she only met as an adult. The ones who’d pushed him into the same hard choice Regina had made. To save them from shame. She'd wondered how anyone lived with themselves. How her own mother walked the streets of Purisima, how she slept in her bed at night. Lived with the things she had done. With pricking her fingers for blood. Cursing, wishing harm on others. 

Sunrise had come and she rushed down. Washed her hands in the salt. Keep my actions holy throughout the day, Regina had whispered as the water slipped past her fingers. Used it to clean her face and breathe. Try and steady her mind. Beg for quiet. And she had gotten it. Emma Swan on bare feet sinking into the sand. Looking like everything she could not have. Being everything that could take her life away. Regina hadn’t been able to restrain herself. To watch her words, keep herself together. Because Emma Swan must leave. Take what little serenity she has left. 

It means today is harder than yesterday. And than the day before that. Regina only has enough presence of mind to make Henry’s lunch, a cauliflower steak he isn’t allowed to trade if he wants that after school chocolate pudding. She kisses her son goodbye at the bus stop and wonders if these days are numbered. More than before. If it isn’t Maria Isabel’s gift that takes him away from her in the end. Her whole life is hanging by a thread. 

But her sister. Zelena moves as if nothing had happened at all. Perhaps she takes after mother in that way. She would have called it temple, that thing that kept her hand steady on a dagger. Sits at the breakfast table, breathing in her coffee. Sabine’s special blend. And only watches them go about their morning.

“Oh crap, I forgot to put our coats in the dryer.” Jacinda says pressing her hand to her forehead. 

“We’ll just wear the old t-shirts,” Sabine replies and kisses her cheek. “It’ll be like when we fixed up the truck and only had the one spot.” 

“Aren’t we trying--”

“Those stained uniforms in the washer?” Zelena interrupts. “I put them for a cycle in the dryer.” 

“Tell me you set them to delicates.” Regina feels her jaw pop. 

“I don’t know, I pushed it on and let it do its thing.” 

Jacinda looks at Regina and then Sabine before rushing to check the dryer. 

“Zelena, if they are in any way--” She says it because Sabine is sucking in her breath and busying herself with finishing up at the sink. 

“Crees que soy pendeja o que?.” 

“No but--”

“They’re fine! All good and dry.” Jacinda returns holding them up. The green and black of the fabric intact. “Thanks.” 

Jacinda tries to smile at Zelena but it never fully forms. 

“We better start prepping if we want to get to California street on time.” Sabine dries her hands and looks at Regina. “We’ll see you at dinner.” 

Regina nods and watches them disappear up the stairs. Opts to say nothing else to her sister. Instead she searches for keys, as if she has enough presence of mind to drive, and prays for the day that is not harder than this. Counts to a hundred as she settles into the driver’s seat and Zelena slides into the passenger’s.

“Are your roommates always so--” Zelena begins as they head towards the store. 

“There aren’t roommates,” Regina replies, feeling a headache coming. “And I don’t know what you mean.”

“They don’t seem to like me much, is all.”

“It could be that you refuse to use an ashtray, could have burned their uniforms” She doesn’t have time for whatever insecurities her sister has discovered. “Or that you told the children that story about poltergeists before bed.” 

“We heard much worse when we were their age. Mother made sure of it.” Zelena checks her make-up in the car mirror. “El Duende had you crawling into my bed in the middle of the night.”

“You told me to go back to my room, if I remember correctly.” She sighs and makes a left. “I’m sure you’re just blowing things out of proportion.” 

“Sure I am,” Zelena drums her fingers to a familiar rhythm she can’t place. “I'll only catch mal de ojo in my own house with the way they look at me.” 

Regina takes one long breath. To keep every single piece of bitterness, every forgotten birthday. Every milestone she had missed. Keep it away from her tongue. Zelena didn’t call it her house when mother’s heart gave out and left her to pick up the pieces. 

“We’re not doing this” She grips the wheel tighter and only keeps her eyes on the road. 

“Fine.” It’s indifference, as easy as a shrug, 

Regina could envy it if it didn’t drive her up the wall. Her sister carries on like that throughout the day. Making snide remarks about customers as soon as they’re out the door. Laughing a little too loudly, much too carelessly. When Regina can’t get her mind to simmer down. Stop herself from remembering how the voices from the other side had whispered. After all, it had all been her doing, hadn’t it? The belladonna in his rum. She had drawn the veve on the tile and asked him to return. All her. Why would the guilt be shared? When they had never shared anything but a mother. 

It’s hard to concentrate on her ratios for new recipes with Zelena in the room.

“And you said lemongrass was the top seller?” She asks Marian as she scribbles on a paper. 

“Right after our wine bar.” Marian replies, distracted by whatever Zelena must be doing. “You know NorCal folk, they take wine however they can.” 

“And who can blame them?” At that Regina finally looks up and finds Zelena rubbing her arms with lotion. “This stuff is excellent. Regina, I have to give it to you---”

“Could you _not_ use up all the product?”

“I’m quality control.”

“Here,” Marian tosses her a sample of an myrrh lotion. “Maybe you can tell us why that one is underselling.” 

“See, Regina? _She_ understands my role in this company.” Her fingers tap that same obnoxious tune and it makes her clench her jaw. 

“Do you think an ale bar would be good?” Her friend asks, clearly in an attempt to distract her. “Wine moms usually have beer husbands.” 

“I suppose it could. I make no promises as to how--”

“Why not Plumeria?” Zelena looks straight at her as she slathers more lotion onto her hands. “That seemed like a hit at the market.” 

“ _Zelena_.” The headache she’d felt coming has fully settled. 

“I feel like I’m missing something.” Marian half laughs and it isn’t her fault that Regina is about to explode. 

“My sister has a thing for blondes,” Something flashes in Zelena’s eyes as she stands. “Is that a recent development, would you say?”

“Oh, just shut up, Zelena.” Regina snaps and so does the pencil she’d been holding. “If you are just going to run your mouth then--”

“Then what, sis?” She comes up to the counter, drumming and drumming her fingers. 

Marian squeezes her wrist giving Regina pause in what she would have said. 

“You know what? I’m going out.” 

“Where?” Zelena’s eyes glint in the light. Like a newly sharpened knife.

“To have lunch.” She takes her phone and avoids Zelena on her way out. Regina can’t trust herself not to strangle her. “You stay here.” 

The door slams closed and Regina takes a deep breath to compose herself. It’s so loud inside her head, so painful that her eyes sting with tears. It’s five blocks to the nearest place and the town gets busier and the whole of her throbs with it. There is nothing she can do about it but live with it. Nod at the people who pass her and try to smile as a way to avoid conversation. By the time she pushes the door open at Granny’s Diner the world is spinning. The place is half full and smelling of things she can’t have. 

“Hey Regina,” Ruby Lucas greets her as she slides onto a seat at the bar. “Fancy seeing you here.”

It could be that Ruby’s eyes are the same shade as Zelena’s or that her grin is far too wide but Regina glares on instinct. 

“Get me whatever vegetarian soup and sandwich combo you have for the day,” She holds her head as if that would hurt with the pain. “And a glass of water.”

“Sure.” She writes an order down on her pad and has the presence of mind to avoid any more small talk. 

The glass of water comes and Regina watches the ice melt. The place sounds like she is drowning, the clinks of metal on china muffled by the voice in her mind. Perhaps she cannot live with it. Muela, the words echoes in her mother’s voice. The word that would slip out as she took Regina by the hair whenever she faltered. Regina isn’t made of the same stuff as her mother. She makes for a poor heir to Maria Isabel. 

When the food arrives Regina takes small bites of the cheese and eggplant sandwich, hoping things inside her would settle down. Her hand shakes when she tries some of the soup. She is so tired. So angry, more than anything Regina wishes she could go back. Back to a time when she did not have to worry about living minute to minute. If the world could only stop. 

_Please, please._

It does. With a swing of the door. 

“If it isn’t my favorite stranger.” Ruby says throwing a towel over her shoulder.

Regina doesn’t need to ask. Doesn’t need to look. It’s clear who it is by the stillness coursing through her. 

“Not sick of me yet?” Emma Swan asks as she plops down two seats away from Regina. 

“Please. What can I get you?” 

“Surprise me.” It could be imperceptible, that secret tenderness that is begging to shine out of Emma Swan. But when she is far too aware of her. So attuned to her. 

Regina is caught staring, she tries to save face by concentrating on her plate. 

“Twice in one day, huh?” The brusqueness of it irks Regina but it’s good to feel something other than desperation. 

“It must be the Earth’s magnetism pulling us together.” She replies, rolling her eyes. Knowing it to be at least half true. 

Emma Swan smiles and nods. Like she can feel it too. How everything slows down, settles for them. Of course this is how the universe gives her anything. It cannot grant her peace without having taken it away first. 

“Uh,I wanted to clear some things up.” She begins as Ruby slides a soda her way. 

“Oh? I wasn’t aware there was anything to clear up.” 

Sometimes it’s like they aren’t strangers, not with the way Regina can feel her eyes on her. 

“Back in Phoenix,” It’s so earnest that Regina has to fight her heart and keep it from swelling. “I...I quit the force. If you were wondering how--”

“How noble of you.” The soup burns her tongue and the roof of her mouth. “And I wasn’t wondering.”

A half-lie, really. If her thoughts had been clear, if they were of anything other than guilt and regret, Regina would want all sorts of things from Emma Swan. 

“Right, yeah. Did your sister’s search tell her what my last case was?” 

Up, down. Up, down. Her ribcage vibrates and her blood. Her blood runs cold. 

“I don’t think it was a thorough search, if I’m being honest.” 

“It was a murder,” Emma Swan says the word with the ease of someone accustomed to it. “I was working on the assumption that it was tied to a previous one.”

“Just the sort of unsavory details I like to hear while having my lunch.” Regina scowls as she makes a show finishing her meal. 

“I believe they were done by the same man,” She is undeterred. “Killian Jones, has your sister ever mentioned that name to you?” 

Milky dead eyes. Flies, flies as thin as eyelashes. Dirt, red under her nails. Whispers, relentless in her blood.

“I know I got her out of a difficult situation.” Her tongue compels her to say more, share the whole truth with her. But she bites down that urge.

“Regina,” It makes her shudder, her name on Emma Swan’s lips. “If he’s still out there, you have to tell me.”

“Actually, I don’t have to tell you anything, detective Swan _._ ” Regina adds as much venom as she can to those final two words.

“Look, he’s more dangerous than he seems.” 

Milky blue, dirt, red under her nails. Flies, flies everywhere. 

“My sister is safe,” She shakes her head to rid it of those images and taps her phone open to pay for her meal. “And that’s all I care about.” 

“I think you know more than you’re letting on.” 

“Most definitely.” It rolls out of her mouth and her insides. The whole of her, it doesn’t seem to regret it. “Am I free to go or are you going to badger me with more questions?” 

“I’m not…”She pinches the bridge of her nose and sighs. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean--”

“But you did.” Regina leaves her seat and shifts her eyes away. “Goodbye, _detective._ ” 

Outside the door, the world and all that runs in her blood overwhelms her again. 

* * *

Her hand isn’t so steady with the eyeliner. A dark blue Mary Margaret was sure would look great on her. The back of Emma’s hair is still warm from where she had used the curling iron. Her skin still smells of Jasmine, from the long shower she’d taken. The lotion she’d rubbed on herself as she failed to keep Regina Mills off her mind. Her touch on the back of her hand. The water dripping down her neck. The breeze tangling itself in her hair. Emma looks at her reflection, mouth hanging open. What the hell is she doing? Messing up her eyeliner and wishing for what she can’t have.Two weeks in Purisima and she has nothing to show for it. Nothing except a shrinking bank account and a racing pulse. 

She wipes at her eye with a wet cloth and tries again. Her mind as loud and unsettled as usual. Mary Margaret had roped her into a video call with her friend Aurora. The woman had the Bambiest eyes she’d ever seen and Mary Margaret had squeezed her arm that Emma hadn’t been able to say no. To the two for one ladies’ night at a local bar. The voice had crashed and roared at the idea, as it could have a say in what she did or didn’t do.

“Well, what do you want me to do?” Emma asks the voices as she sets down the eyeliner. “It’s not like you tell me anything.” 

The voice says nothing in return. Hums as she picks up the closest thing to grey on Mary Margaret’s eye shadow palette and uses her finger to smudge it on her eyelids. Emma sighs as she checks her face. It’ll have to do. Be good enough for a skating rink turned bar that school teachers frequent on Thursday nights. It could be better than she expects, maybe a straight women’s night out will make her forget. Give her something to think about other than nightmares. Other than Regina refusing to talk to her. 

“What a fucking mess.” It’s a deep breath Emma takes to keep from rubbing her eyes and ruining all her work.

“What is, honey?” Mary Margaret says, standing at her door. In a cardigan and Peter Pan collar that is a far cry from her own outfit. 

“My make-up.” Emma lies, giving her enough of a smile to make it believable. 

“You look great!” She says stepping in and appraising her face. Maybe it’s what Mary Margaret’s mother did, maybe it’s what all mothers do. Emma wouldn’t know. “You could use a little blush on the cheeks? Do you mind if…?” 

“Go ahead.” 

Mary Margaret’s face lights up as she fetches her make up bag and brushes on a peach colored powder onto Emma’s face. 

“You know, you’re the guest that has stayed the longest.” She finds the lash curler before Emma can say a word about it.

“Really?”

“Most people just come and go for a weekend. Or have tickets for something in the city,” Mary Margaret lifts her chin. “But here you are!”

“Two weeks later.” Emma braces for impact, for being told to leave. 

It isn’t a new conversation. She had some three times a year as a kid. Usually it was some social worker with too much on her plate that would pull her aside, buy her ice cream when she was young enough, and say that she was being sent back. Sometimes, when the home had been a shitty one, the social worker would smile at her. Mary Margaret smiles at her like that through the mirror. 

“I can’t believe it took us this long to hit the Rabbit Hole together!” She stands back and claps her hands together, completely unaware of what had gone through Emma’s mind. “We are going to have so much fun!”

“Yeah.” Her cheeks are now rosier, more fitting of Mary Margaret’s Purisima.

Emma gets to stay. 

* * *

Henry dangles his feet off her mattress. He’d climbed onto her bed with a book but it lays forgotten as he watches her many rituals. Regina smiles at her son through her vanity, and breathes. Is grateful for another day with him. She plucks at the errant hairs on her temple and cleans the shape of her brows. 

“Does that hurt?” He asks.

“It used to,” Regina laughs as she watches him rub at his own brows. “I hardly feel a thing now.” 

There is a knock on her door frame, Sabine with her hair pulled back and naturally curly. Just a step or two away from being ready for tonight. Dressed in a merigold dress that stretches down to her feet. She raises up a liquor glass with an amber colored drink inside. 

“I thought the whole point of going out was a change of pace?” Regina takes the glass and savours the smell of it. “Getting someone else to mix our drinks?” 

“And pay extra for the Rabbit Hole’s cotton candy cocktails?” Sabine replies, shaking her head. “Besides, no way that mixologist phony Phillip can do better than me.” 

Regina takes a sip and immediately feels the vanilla in the bourbon and the Bitters. The perfect blend. That good burn down her throat, even if her mind goes louder with it. 

“When you’re right, you’re right.” 

Sabine smiles in a way Regina now realizes has grown rare. The corners of her eyes are soft and she is suddenly reminded of Zelena’s words. That perhaps why her expression is so light is because Zelena is nowhere to be found. 

No. Regina is only imagining these things. 

“I’ll let you finish up. According to Jay, something’s in the cards for you tonight,”Sabine breathes in and rolls her eyes. “And Marian and I are supposed to see it through since she’s staying with the kids.” 

The lovers. The purple and gold to them. Delicate edges that Jacinda had drawn as Regina stuck pins into her hair earlier tonight. Golden haired and Regina had thought of Emma Swan. Emma Swan who hasn’t left. Who subdues the world around them. Who figured her out and Regina should wish away. 

“I cannot believe you folded.” Regina schools her expression into something like exasperation

“Hey, happy wife. And if you ask me, you could use it.” She winks and leaves the room before Regina can object to that. 

“What did tia Sabine mean, mom?” Henry asks as she slides closer to the floor. “About the cards?”

“She is just playing around, mi vida.” Regina picks up her eyelash curler and catches her son’s interested eye. “Come sit by me.” 

He jumps at the chance and sits with his back so straight against her. Regina first curls her lashes, with her mouth slightly open. 

“Do you want to try?” She asks, running a hand through his hair.

He nods enthusiastically and Regina can’t explain it. How her heart keeps growing for him. She knows that her son is what she and father could only dream of. He has that same kindness to him that Daniel did. She does one eye and lets him take over. He blinks and tilts his head at his reflection, at the thickness of his lashes. 

“How does it look?”

“Wonderful.” Regina kisses his forehead and swallows back her tears. 

He smiles up at her and takes a brush from the vanity. Dusts his cheeks with it and does the same to hers with a laugh. 

It could almost be a peaceful night. 

* * *

The Rabbit Hole is one of those places that has odd things nailed to its walls. Tea sets, old pocket watches. The overheard lamps are made out to look like thorn bushes. And everything on the menu is named after some fairy tale character. Emma has been nursing Poisoned Apples only because it sounded least like a candy. Sitting at the table, she feels like the foster kid again. Except this time the popular girls at school had decided to let her in. Play at charity with her. 

Another one of Mary Margaret’s friends had joined them. Glinda had taken Emma’s hands and squealed over how much she claimed to love Emma’s outfit. Ran her fingers through her hair, she’d kept herself from flinching away. The woman is covered in pink from head to toe, her curled hair makes her look like a doll. Aurora always volunteers to get them a new round of drinks, something about the bartender. Mary Margaret for her part gets giddy with her drinks. They are more like watermelon smoothies but it doesn’t stop her getting red in the face.

“Oh my,” Mary Margaret says, putting a hand to her cheek as she looks at her phone. “I love love.” 

“Is it David?” Aurora asks with a dreamy quality to her voice. 

Mary Margaret nods and flips her screen so that her friend can see for herself. Emma catches it, a selfie of her boyfriend holding a flower. 

“Don’t get me wrong long distance is hard,” Every word makes her blush even more. “But that’s how I know our love is true. It can overcome any obstacle.” 

Emma takes a swig from her Poisoned Apple and sinks further into her seat. From what she knows David lives in Washington, works at some north Pacific reserve. Mary Margaret falls asleep as they video call late at night, Emma can hear them through her wall most nights. Running early mornings means she is spared from their wake up calls. 

“You’re lucky he’s far away.” Glinda says. Bait, Emma can recognize it for what it is. The woman quirk an eyebrow and leans forward on the table. 

“Lucky? How?” Mary Margaret hiccups and covers her mouth. 

“My dearest Maggie, you aren’t asking that question with who is in town?” She sips her pink drink and smacks her lips. “Zelena Mills, back to her usual ways.” 

“Oh my God, I’d forgotten about that.” Aurora says, almost relieved she gets to talk about it too. “I heard she was making eyes at Eric while Ari was standing _right_ there.” 

“She hasn’t changed a bit. I remember in high school, she just wanted to work at the soft-serve counter for the exposure.” 

Emma says nothing. Just drinks, lets the alcohol burn in her stomach. Because Glinda is the type to say behind closed doors that women like Zelena had it coming. That it was just a matter of time, what else could be expected from them? 

“Maybe she’s different now. I hear she’s helping out Regina at the store.” Mary Margaret offers, at least having the decency to look ashamed. 

“Please, free loading is more like it.” Glinda laughs and throws her head back. “And have you seen that odd burn mark she’s sporting?” 

“Burn mark?” Emma asks, her pulse begins to race. 

Glinda smiles, too obviously pleased. 

“In her upper arm. She was wearing that low cut shirt yesterday at the grocery store,” Aurora blinks and lowers her voice. “It’s shaped like a skull and bones.” 

“Must be some witchcraft-devil worship thing, if you ask me.” 

It’s like getting hit in the chest. Skull and bones branded onto her skin. Sheila had it on her ankle, Carmen on the back of her hand. Emma had always watched Killian Jones’s fingers for a ring that might match it. None did. He’d tap the metal on the table to make sure Emma saw them. Knew she had nothing. If Jones branded her then it was more than luck that saved Zelena. He was stopped by something stronger than him. Maybe for good. 

Emma fishes her phone out of her pocket and quickly searches through all his handles. A narcissist, if he is out still out there, he wouldn’t be able to help himself. Would want others to see him, hang it over Zelena’s head like a threat. She checks all his last posts, the selfies in poor lighting. The _asshole_ shots of the road from behind the wheel. The last photo of him is one where he’s lighting a cigarette inside his car. Time stamp is from a little over two weeks ago. 

“Missing your ex?” Mary Margaret asks, leaning her head on her shoulder. “He has that bad boy look to him.” 

“Uuh, no. He’s just some guy.” Her voice shakes as she locks her screen. “Bad all around.” 

If she were anything like these women expected her to be Emma could detail her life for them. Talk about broken hearts. Pretend, pretend she is anything like them. But Emma can’t even act like she belongs here. With them. Her mind is a mess. Of sounds. Images. Case files. All useless in the end. Dirt, red under her nails. Whispers in her blood. Milky blue. Milky blue. It all explodes inside her, like rippling thunder. It squeezes at Emma’s chest, makes everything hurt. Makes the world spin. 

“Look who just came down from her castle on the hill.” Glinda says nodding towards the door. “Coven and all.” 

Emma's pulse is hammer and she wants nothing else to make it stop. One second when she can breathe again. She lifts her eyes to see who Glinda means. Her chest. It fills her with relief. Even as her heart is relentless. At the sight, at how everything fits into place. And stops.Stops for Regina Mills. With her hair thrown back. In a black suit that makes her shoulders look wider, tailored shorts that stop above her knees. Flanked by two women who laugh and shake their head at her. Pull her towards the bar. Emma wants, and wants. 

Up, down. Up, down. Regina’s eyes find her across the room. 

* * *

Up, down. Up, down. It’s impossible to ignore. The rhythm her heart keeps when in the vicinity of Emma Swan. That steady burn at the back of her neck, where Regina can feel her gaze. The world is silent enough that Regina can pick up the guitar strings in the music playing. Enjoy the overpriced cocktail Marian slides her way. 

“Remember when we used to come here and skate?” Marian asks as she takes a swig from her beer. 

“ _You_ skated?” Sabine asks feigning surprise. 

“Is it really that shocking?” Regina hears the laugh in her throat and relishes it. Knowing she is being watched.

“Ate up all the boys too.” Marian says with a smirk. “Never did get her into booty shorts though.” 

“Of course this town would exchange a skating rink for the _Rabbit Hole._ ” Regina picks the bits of candied apple out of a glass and eats them.

“It isn’t that bad.” 

Regina gives Marian a look and then nods in whichever direction she can Glinda and the like are staring at them. 

“OK. It’s this or some gay bar in the city we are too old for.” Her friend ducks her head. “Last time I went to one, some college girl called me daddy. I bolted out of there so fast.” 

Sabine throws her head back and laughs. 

“Thank God I’m married.” She sips her drink and cringes. “This is why you two need hobbies.” 

“To pick up women?” Regina’s voice goes higher as she turns around and locks eyes with Emma Swan.

“I met Jay at a carshop.” 

“I signed up for that wood working class,” Marian takes another swig from her beer. “Though the only person I found there was Mary Margaret Blanchard.” 

“Oh shit,” Sabine laughs again. “That’s what I called jinxed.” 

Regina tries to laugh too. But their words, the music are fading away. Because Emma Swan slides out of her booth. Her steps are unsteady but still she walks. Without taking her eyes from her, like Regina is all she can see. She watches her reach the bar, lean against it. Nod and get a beer handed to her. Take, one, two swigs. Wipe her lips with the back of her mouth.

Emma Swan pushes herself off and Regina decides it’s prudent to look away. Para disimular. She turns away and finds that Sabine and Marian have abandoned her. They’re standing at the other end of the room, Marian gives her a two finger salute and Sabine raises her glass. 

“Malditas.” Regina mutters as she braces herself against the bar. 

“Looks like you got ditched.” 

Up, down. Up, down. Emma Swan is standing dangerously close. In jeans that fit her too well. A transparent black shirt under her jacket. 

“Their idea of a joke.” Regina says catching her breath. “What are you doing here?”

“Getting a drink.” She smiles and the warmth that radiates from her. It keeps her in place, no matter what reason says. What is logical and rational. In this light Emma Swan could have those golden details.

“You know what I mean.” 

“Must be the Earth’s magnetism. Pulling us together.” Her laugh, Regina wishes she hated it. That feels like a craving had just been satisfied. “Coincidence.” 

“And Purisima’s resident gossips aren’t entertaining enough for you?”

The combed out curls of her hair moves as she looks back at them, at the three women staring at them and shakes her head. 

“I don’t think I mesh too well with them. It’s like that nightmare that you’re back in highschool except worse. Somehow.” 

“Glinda never did abandon her Cheerleading Captain routine.” Regina sees Glinda, sizing her up. Trying to make sense of them. “Neither did the other two doe-eyed idiots.” 

“Harsh.” 

“I’m sure they’re being nothing but fair to us.” 

The corners of Emma Swan’s lip twitch, like the idea of them stirs something inside her. It does in her. Warm, so warm. Spreading through all of her. 

“They, uh..they said some... _stuff_.” She leans closer, Regina can feel the energy rippling through her skin.

“Did they? What sort of ‘stuff’?” 

“Like, I don’t know.” She drinks from her beer, a shot of courage perhaps. “Like you and your sister are witches.”

It’s Regina’s turn to laugh. Throw her head back and take a sip from her cocktail. Rumors hadn’t floated around when her mother’s tearoom was open to those women’s mothers. When they needed favors. To win back cheating husbands, for that dirty cheque to clear. But they do, when Regina sells soaps and lotions.

“Yes, we get naked under the moonlight and high off mushrooms we pick from the forest.” Regina rubs at her forehead and smirks. “ Want to check me for horns?”

“No. No, nothing like that” She takes a deep breath. “But…”

“But _what_?” Something breaks in the night. Those gold details that could have been tonight. They are only like the pale green of her eyes. 

“They said your sister...Regina, does your sister have a mark? Of a skull and bones?”

A marked burn onto her skin. In the middle of the road. And air. Air is trapped in her chest. Of course, Emma Swan is here to pull the rug under her feet. Just as the world had found its peace. 

“You’re drunk, detective.” Regina looks over at Marian and Sabine but it’s no use. 

“I’m not.” She says, putting her beer down. 

“Drunk or a detective?” 

“Neither. Regina, please,” There is something in her voice that yearns to be believed. “You can trust me.” 

“I don’t know about that.” It sounds like she could. Could let herself go. Fall, and fall hard. Because Emma Swan’s gaze burns her, and the world. It’s stopped turning.

“ Ok. Umm..I...I made a wish when I quit.” There is a shyness, that secret tenderness to her lips. “I jumped in my car and wished something would lead me here. Because I couldn’t stand...I couldn’t stand that someone else might get hurt. And there was this...I don’t know. Please, you have to trust me.” 

But Regina knows better. Better than blind faith. Not when this woman could cut the thread in one swift motion. Regina closes her eyes, inches towards Emma Swan. So close that Regina can feel just how shallow her breathing has grown. Those curls against her eyelashes. 

“How about a little magic trick, detective?” She peers into her mind. Into years, and years of memories. To blue uniforms and nights where she rushed out of them. “You thought you’d be one of the good ones. So you went to night school while you worked the beat. You did everything right. Kept your reports clean and true. Three years until you could wear your cheap leather jacket to work. You were arrogant enough to think you change the system. It all came crumbling down when you realized you couldn’t. And now what? You want to atone for your sins?” 

Regina steps back and opens her eyes. Finds the color drained from her face, her mouth hanging open. 

“Find a new job. And spare me your white guilt.” She tries to walk away, leave before it’s too late. 

But. Emma Swan has taken her wrist, her grasp is weak. Shaky. Her pulse travelling through her like electricity, her whole skin lights up with it. 

“Did you and your sister kill Killian Jones?” 

The question cuts through her like a knife. Through every possibility that had ever existed in her cards.

“Yes, a couple of times.” The truth comes out of her chest, cold and quick. 

Regina snatches her hand away and does not have the courage to look back. Not even as the noise begins to drum at her skull.

  
  



	6. Chapter 6

Dirt has made its way into her sneakers. Tiny peebles rolling around her toes. But it’s worth it.To run up a hill and sweat off her hangover. Emma breathes in the morning air, the purple wild flowers in her path. It’s the only way Regina’s words stop moving around in her stomach like a stone. Guilt. Atonement. She started using them at seventeen. Pay for a mistake that hadn’t been hers. But Emma had been so desperate then. She gladly dived into that mistake. Took the punishment that came with it. Strong and quiet. It all feels like one big fucking joke now. 

In, out. She breathes.Up, down. 

Emma looks over at the clean blue line from the top of the hill. Where they sky and the water meet. Thinks she could leave. This place that had been so hard to find. Because Regina had not lied last night. She knows it. The words had burned like the branches of lighting across her body. Because Killian Jones is dead. 

Emma sits down on the ground. Stretches out until it hurts. Because. What is she supposed to do with that? Being thrown directionless. Sitting with the knowledge that Zelena Mills had almost become one more number. And that there would have been nothing she could have done about it. That the man is dead and Emma cannot bring herself to condemn it. Why shouldn’t he be? When he’d killed and would have killed again. What does it say about her her that still those roots in her chest beg her to let them grow. Stay, stay. Even when there is no room for her. No place for an orphan girl who hasn’t learned better. Emma still wants. And wants. 

She takes a swig from her water and kicks at the dirt. Red, red under her feet. Covering the grey of her sneakers. Emma crumbles it in her hand. Like clay under her touch. It forms a single line as she presses it onto her palm. Milky blue. Dirt, red under her nails. The bristles so hard on her skin. Flies, flies. Flies everywhere. Emma hurries to get to her feet. To find that the flowers and weeds had stopped right where she had been sitting. That stone rolls around in her stomach again. Heavy so heavy. Guilt. Guilt that could drown her. The voice, screaming. Screaming so hard she could go deaf. 

“Fuck.” She groans, just short of heaving. 

Then.

Something moves in the corner of her eye. A shadow where there should be none. Emma clenches her fists and turns to find it. But it moves. Again, and again. With malice she recognizes. Burning off Sheila and Carmen’s case files. Every time Killian Jones tapped his rings against the metal. Every time he smirked and walked free. It’s like a sickness that spreads. Rots everything in its path. Until her lungs squeeze at her and she is nothing but anger and noise.

Dead but not gone.

Stay. Stay. Stay.

Because no one is safe.

* * *

Friday afternoons used to feel like the prize at the end of the week. Leaving early with Heny and Lucy holding onto her hands. Knowing she would rest the next day. Read and lie in the sunroom. Before braiding the bread was a relief. Now. Now it’s too loud in the kitchen. The ping of the microwave from Henry reheating his hot chocolate. From the kettle boiling the water for the marmahon. Lucy opening and closing the fridge. The inside voice screams and screams. Because of Emma Swan. Because Regina had told her the truth when she’d asked. She gets the order of the strands wrong when she remembers the look on her face. Struck. She’d known, known to take her words seriously. The thought will drive her insane. Waiting for the day they come for her. 

Regina undoes the braid. Her hand shakes but she thinks she might as well add herbs to it. Her hands are oily from kneading and Regina does not have the energy for it. To bend down in the garden and pull at the leaves. Not with all the sounds around her. Henry and Lucy are nearby, scribbling away on notepads, marker stains on their hands. It doesn't count as work for her son, not yet. 

“Henry could you go out to the garden and get some rosemary and basil for me?”

“Can it wait a little?” He pinches one eye shut, hoping to get away with it. 

“Tia, we’re right in the middle of our story...” Lucy pouts at her, looking so much like Jacinda. 

“Now, please.” Regina tells them as gently as the noise allows. 

They groan but they leave the table and head towards the door. Regina checks on the chicken in the oven and pours the marmahon into a pot for toasting. When she turns away from the stove she finds Lucy and Henry standing close together. Looking out to the garden. 

“Hijo, hagame caso,” Her tone has lost some of its softness. “When I tell you to do something I expect you to _listen_.” 

“I’m not going out there as long as he is.” He says, staring at one spot. 

“Who?” Panic goes up her throat like bile but Regina grabs her wooden mace before marching towards the door. 

All she finds is the wind blowing through the garden.

“Sweetheart, there is no one there.” 

“Yes, there is.” Lucy takes her hand, clammy with fear. “He’s standing under the apple tree. Can’t you see him?”

It only gets worse. The scream inside her head. It can’t be. It can’t be him. Regina takes them away, back to their story and drawing. She braids the bread without the herbs. Baking it, covering it as she places it on the table for dinner. It’s a quiet affair, Zelena had drifted in and out of the house before Regina could get a word in. With Sabine and Jacinda catering an event in the city it’s just Regina and the children. 

Her voice and hands tremble as she says the blessing over the bread, starts it once. Twice. When the scream gets too much, when it shouts over the words. Henry glances at her ever so often during dinner and her heart breaks. Breaks because he is her son. Ten years old, he shouldn’t be fretting over her. Lucy pushes her food around the plate and plays with a string around her neck. 

“Was he a ghost?” Lucy asks, breaking the silence. “Like one of those spirits that my moms call sometimes?” 

Henry gives her a look, like maybe they had agreed to not bring it up. 

“I don’t know, tesoro. Perhaps.” Regina tries to temper her tone and takes a sip of her wine. 

“Is he why mama gave me this gris-gris?” She lifts the string and shows Regina the pouch attached to it. “She said it was for good luck but…”

“When did Sabine give you that?” Her gut twists at the sight of it.

“Hmm, maybe...ow!” Lucy glares at Henry, who has clearly kicked her under the table. “I don’t remember.” 

A lie. Regina accepts it because the truth she suspects might be that it’s been around Lucy’s neck for weeks now. She isn’t ready for that. For the confirmation. That it’s all too real. Outside the noise in her mind.

“Maybe we were just seeing things.” Henry says, suddenly sounding older. 

He shouldn’t. He shouldn’t. 

It’s why after dinner, after prayers Regina comes into his room with a bottle of ash, and a piece of red string. 

“Henry, I need to speak with you.”

“Is everything OK?” There is doubt in his eyes. One Regina has never seen before. 

“Yes, sweetheart.” She says, despite all that she knows. “But I’d still like to talk with you. Is that alright?”

He nods and makes room for her on the bed. She takes on his pillows and lies back against the bedrest. Henry burrows into her side and lies his head on her shoulder. 

“Is this about… _dinner_?” He whispers. 

“It is, yes.” Regina runs her hand through his hair. “I don’t want you to feel like you need to lie. Especially not to me.” 

“OK.” 

“There was someone there, wasn’t there?” A sharp pain cuts through her, matching a scream in intensity. “You weren’t just seeing things.” 

He nods against her neck. Regina doesn’t need to look to know that his eyes are closed tight. She hurts, across the chest. Because this house was not supposed to be a place of fear again. It was supposed to be a dream. 

“What is he?”

“I don’t have an answer for that,” Her heart is heavy with it. “But I can make it so that nothing can hurt you.” 

“What if he’s something bad? Something...evil?” The doubt in his voice. It’s a new and piercing tone. Like a fresh needle, wedding itself in a wound. 

“Something stronger than me?” Regina closes her eyes for a moment. Remembers Maria Isabel’s gift, unstoppable. Inevitable. Not today. Not today. 

“I don’t know. Maybe.” 

“I’ll always protect you, mi vida. I promise.” 

“Really?” Henry looks up at her and the shine in his eyes. Almost tearful, wedges the needle deeper and deeper. 

“Always.” Regina takes his wrist and ties the string around it. Tight enough that it can’t fall. “Never take this off, carino.” 

“Will this work?” His chest rises and falls against her arm. Frightened, like he has never been. 

Regina presses a kiss to his forehead. It’s the only answer she can give him. Because she isn’t sure. Hasn’t been sure since she drew that veve on the tile and called for that man’s spirit to come and take possession of the body. The voice rises, rises. Screams. But she smiles for her son. 

“What about this?” He asks, reaching for the bottle of ash by her leg. “What does this do?”

The bottle makes a pop when she uncaps it, makes the air smell like fire. Regina gets to her feet and forms a half moon around his bed with the ash. Henry raises a brow at that and laughs. Despite himself. Despite everything. 

“You check the ash before bed and before you get up in the morning,” She tells him carefully, it could be asking too much of a boy. But she has no choice. “If the ashes are ever disturbed, I want you to tell me straight away. Do you understand?” 

Henry breathes in, takes a moment to consider her words. Presses his lips together, as he does when he is unsure but gets under the covers all the same. 

“I love you, mom.” 

She wishes that the words didn’t form a knot in her throat. 

* * *

Emma hasn’t slept. The night had been long and everything in the apartment creaked. Every shadow made her close her eyes. The voice louder, made her chest ache. The sickness in her bones, lacing itself with her muscle. Too much. Too much she does not understand. Emma splashes water in her face, towel wrapped around her middle. How can it be? That she had felt Killian Jones like poison in a wound. That she’d felt its spread. Down to her bones. There is only one person she can talk to. Who can make this all stop. Just for a moment, enough for her to breathe. Regina won’t see her. That much she made clear.

But. It’s like every inch, every pore of her skin is screaming. With the need for relief, for that passing stillness. What little she can make out from her thoughts tells her to find Regina. Because it isn’t safe. Not with the way it had crept under her skin and squeezed. Squeezed until she couldn’t breathe. 

She’ll hate her. Regina will but it’s the only thing she can do. Pick the first clean shirt from a pile. Her worn out jeans and the shoes that pinch her feet and head out the door. Towards the one place she can think of. Her eyes burn as she walks. Until she finds the Usula and Crooked Tree Company with all its lights off. She peers through the window display for any sign of movement, anything that might tell her that they will open soon. That Regina will be here.

“Do you need something?” A woman asks, playing with the keys in her hand. 

Emma recognizes her. Loose dark hair and jeans that go up to her waist. She was with Regina at the Rabbit Hole. Sunny smile. Marian, she must be Marian, Regina’s business partner. 

“I..uh..I was just waiting for opening time.” She doesn’t know what to say and not sound deranged. 

“Soap emergency?” Marian asks, raising her brow. 

“Something like that.” 

“We’re closed on Saturdays.” She taps on the lettering on the glass door and laughs. “I just came by to get my charger.” 

“Right, yeah.” Emma shakes her head but it doesn’t make her feel less stupid. “I’ll just --” 

“Come in and ask me what you want to ask.” Marian tells her as she holds the door open. “It’ll only be a sec until I find the damn thing.” 

She bobs her head and stays by the door as she watches Marian search drawer after drawer. 

“You were at the bar the other night,” She tells her as she disappears behind the counter. “You and Regina were deep in conversation.” 

“What...what did she say?” Emma stuffs her hands inside her pockets. No. Marian doesn’t seem to know about Jones. She wouldn’t. 

“Nothing. She just brooded the whole time we were there.” 

“Oh.” It’s hard to speak with the wildfire running through her. 

“Oh is right. Aha! Found it!” Marian pops up behind the counter. “So...what did you two talk about?”

Emma knows how this must look. Showing up here too early in the morning. If things could be that simple. If it could only be about a night out. About too much to drink and bad flirting. Forgetting to ask for her number. 

“Umm, can’t say I remember.” 

“Neither did she when I asked. And that’s rare for Regina.” She is still smiling but Emma knows she is being sized up.. “Now you either had crazy chemistry that had her dizzy or something’s going on.” 

“I...I just really have to speak with her,” Desperation slips out and Marian’s expression changes. “It’s kind of urgent.” 

She seems to consider Emma’s words, looks in her eyes. Trying to pick the lie. Maybe, maybe she’s enough. Marian lets out a heavy high and checks her watch. 

“Alright, listen. I don’t know what the deal between the two of you is and she might kill me because of this,” Marian rubs the bridge of her nose. “But there is a place on Mission, Regina and Henry like to have breakfast there before service. El Paisa.” 

“Thank you.”

“Your funeral if this goes sideways.” Marian nods towards the door. 

Emma tries her best to give her something like a grateful smile. But her lips only twitch with nerves as she rushes to the Bug. Sets her phone for directions and hopes that this pans out. That Regina will listen to her. It might not. Probably not. She pushes the speed limit driving down the highway and into the city. Emma does not stop to consider it’s her first time in San Francisco. Driving uphill and downhill, giving her clutch hell. Does not think that this had been a pin on her mental map as a girl. Instead she turns when the app tells her to and only worries about time. 

Fifteen to ten in the morning. El Paisa is impossible to miss, with its big painted scene. All blue with the backdrop of a beach. Serving breakfast, lunch, and dinner. She parks her car somewhere she is sure to get a ticket. Up, down. Emma crosses the street, feeling every heartbeat. It beats, pounds against her chest as she realizes that the place is crowded. Bursting at the seams. It feels stupid to try and ask passing waiters about Regina. Not when Emma has no business asking about a mother and son. 

“You have got to be kidding me.” 

Emma doesn’t need to turn around to know it’s Regina. To feel that stillness settling on her skin. She finds her dressed in slacks and white buttoned down shirt. Her hand is on a young boy’s shoulder. Neatly dressed and wearing a skullcap attached to his hair by some pins. Henry. Regina’s son. He eyes his mother curiously and then turns his attention towards her. Like he may be trying to pin her too. 

“Uh, hi.” Emma could pinch her eyes shut in embarrassment. 

“Detective, out on another Yelp field trip I presume..” At that Henry snaps up to look at his mother. “Sweetheart, go wait for me at the table.” 

“I thought we were leaving.” He clearly wants to stay and listen to whatever they’re about to say. 

“ _Henry_.” Regina fixes him with a look that has him going back without protest. 

“Don’t tell me.You were just in the mood for some morning rosquillas to go with fair trade coffee,” She shakes her head. “No wait. It’s the universe conspiring to make this happen. Or are you going to call it a coincidence again?”

“Not a coincidence. I went looking for you at the store,” Emma bites at the skin of her lips. “And you weren’t there.” 

“That doesn’t explain why you’re _here._ ” She gestures to the place around her. “A forty- five minute drive away from Purisima Mainstreet.” 

“I ran into Marian. She told me where to find you.”

“What did you tell her?” Regina’s lips arrange themselves into a snarl. Fear. Emma can feel it in the air between them.

“Nothing you haven’t.” She tries to say it carefully, to reach for her. But she only backs away from her. “Regina, I’m not here to hurt you.” 

That gets her a scoff and a glare thrown her way. 

“I know what you think of me,” Everything inside Emma shakes. With a need she can’t explain. “And maybe you’re right--”

“You’re going to have to be more specific.” Regina breathes in. Chest rising and falling. Same as hers. “I’m right about a lot of things.” 

Emma wants to ask if it’s the same for her. If she has the loudness inside her too. The one that disappears when they’re with each other. 

“I could be trying to ease off some of my guilt,” She can’t stop herself. “But it isn’t just about that. I can help you.” 

“Help me? With _what_ exactly?”

A dare. For Emma to say it here. In a crowded restaurant during the breakfast rush. With smiling families and kids running in between the tables. 

“With whatever trouble you might be in,” Not yet. Emma can’t talk about the malice. The cancer spreading through her bones. Squeezing at her lungs. “Anything you can’t get out of.”

“Quite the savior’s complex you’ve got there.” Regina runs a hand through her hair. “But I can assure you, I am in no need of rescuing.” 

“It’s not like that. It’s--”

“You’re making us late,” Regina’s heels click against the floor as she signals to her son it’s time to leave. “And this conversation is over.” 

Emma bites the inside of her cheek and clenches her fists. She can’t let her go. Not yet. 

“I felt something,” Up, down. Up, down. Emma has never been so willing to share before. “Something...something evil. It was there, like poison, whenever I was around Jones. And yesterday I was out for a run. I swear I saw a shadow and felt it again. Like he isn’t really gone. I can’t explain it and it sounds insane. Please, just--” 

“I think you might have listened to one too many rumors, detective.” The words are sharp but the expression on her face is anything but. “If you’re seeing things I suggest getting your eyesight checked.” 

“Regina,” Emma can hear the desperation in her own voice. “Let me do something about this. Anything.” 

But Regina won’t look at her. Locks her jaw. Up, down. Up, down.

“Save your energy for someone who needs it.” With a turn of her heel she walks away before Emma can do anything about it. 

* * *

Page eighty-four. Regina has spent five minutes on it. Trying to read the book she had set aside for today. Lying back in an armchair in the Sun room. It is really no use when she can’t help the tremors. She had struggled through prayers, barely finding the rhythm. Missed her exit on the way back to Purisima. Henry had caught on, the look he’d given her. It had made her want to dissolve because she has never been this person. Scattered-brained. Absent. 

Regina blames Emma Swan. That earnestness that strikes too close to her core. That seemingly she can’t do without. She blames her too for seeing a shadow. For adding to the ever rising voice in her mind. Al escandalo que tiene en la cabeza. It cannot be real. It cannot be. Not the shadow. Not the apparition under the apple tree. Regina returns to the page, to read about the divine rights of a fictional world. Forget, forget. 

Until she hears the shuffling of bottles in the kitchen. In the liquor cabinet. Regina looks up and finds Zelena standing on the tip of her toes, trying to reach the back of the cabinet. 

“Zelena, what are you doing?”

“Trying to find me some decent rum, what does it look like I’m doing?” She shoots back with a dark look on her face. “I would have thought father taught you to have better taste.” 

“It’s barely four in the afternoon.” 

“Perfect timing then. Just need enough to kill the boredom.” 

Regina rubs at her temples and Zelena pours herself some four fingers of honey colored rum into a glass. 

“Do you think that’s enough?” 

Her sister ignores her as she practically downs the contents of her glass. Opens the cupboards, the refrigerator. Cabinet, after cabinet as if she is in search of something. Regna listens to Henry and Lucy’s playful thuds upstairs and puts her book down. She can’t have this. Zelena stumbling around the house smelling of liquor. 

“Why on Earth are you sweeping through my kitchen like a tornado?” Regina asks as she moves towards the breakfast bar.

Zelena only taps the counter. In that infernal, familiar rhythm. The one that could be a song but Regina can never place. 

“I’m starving. Do you know how long it’s been since I last ate?”

“I’m going to guess lunch?” Regina kisses her teeth but it goes unnoticed. 

“Too bloody long.” She opens the refrigerator again only to close it with a grunt. “Think you could whip something up for me?”

“I _can’t._ You know that I can’t.” The anger moves down her neck, sitting in her chest.

“Right, right.” Zelena taps her a finger on her lips. 

Her sister smirks, almost as if something sinister had just occurred to her. She opens the oven door and is too delighted by her find. Zelena retrieves the pie dish and sticks a finger in it. Licks it clean. 

“Apple. How...quaint. But I suppose it’ll do.” 

“What the hell are you doing?!” Regina tries to take it from her but Zelena snatches it away. “That was meant for tonight’s dessert!”

“Not anymore.” Zelena lets out something like a cackle. 

She balances the dish in one arm and the bottle in between her fingers. Goes for the garden doors and steps outside. Her dress drags behind her as she settles in a lawn chair. In the shade under the orange tree. Regina follows her outside, the wetness of the grass sticks to her toes. Everything, absolutely everything pounds inside her. 

“Que putas te pasa?!” She yells at her, as the ground shakes under her feet. 

Zelena blinks under the afternoon soon. As if she were confused, like she cannot comprehend what Regina is saying to her. 

“Are you supposed to be talking to me?”

“Who else?!” A kind of energy radiates off her, sparks at the tip of her fingers. “I’m getting sick of this act of yours!” 

Her sister blinks again. Regina can see it. The green in her eyes shining darker as she stands up. Like never before. 

“And pray tell, what act would this be?”

“ _Thi_ _s_.” She points to the bottle, anger pulsating away in her throat. “Esta borrachera. Taking, and taking and expecting me and everyone else in my house--”

“It’s my house too, sis,” Zelena steps closer to her. “But we know flesh and blood mean nothing to you.” 

“Oh. Your house.” It’s too much. The bitterness clings to Regina’s tongue. All she hasn’t said. Wouldn’t have said before. “Your house. I thought it stopped being that when you abandoned me to mother. Me, your flesh and blood.” 

“Abandoned you?!” The lights inside the house flicker. “I was saving myself! And you, you had that handy trust fund from _your_ family. I had nothing!” 

“You think it was easy?!” Everything is so loud. So loud Regina quakes. Every cell of her. “To sit alone in this house for years?! With no way out?!” 

“You found one, though. Didn’t you?” Zelena is relishing this, judging by the twisted corners of her mouth.

“Don’t you dare--!”

“You want to talk about ruined lives? How about we start with that one. We both know you married that boy for the same reason mother married father. You thought you could never love him and he was your ticket out. And he ended up dying--”

“Shut up!” Boiling, furious tears sting Regina’s eyes. “You don’t get to talk about Daniel--”

“Why not? Because your bleeding heart couldn’t help itself and killed him all the same?” 

The Sun makes her sister’s shadow larger behind her. Makes it grow and grow.

“You think you’re so much better than me because you’ve spent your life drifting from place to place,” This, this Regina hopes wounds her. “Never staying long enough to care about someone for once in your miserable life.” 

“Ha, that’s rich! How long will it be, sis?”

“How long until what?”

“Three years? Six, eight?” It rolls around in her sister’s mouth. The venom. “Until your son decides he’s a man? Until Maria Isabel’s gift kills him too? Because you were too weak.” 

The sparks in her fingers flare and Regina thinks she could choke her. Instead Regina focuses on the rum bottle lying on the ground. On the glass. Glass that hot enough would melt. She locks her jaw and thinks of fire and pain until it cracks. Until it explodes with her fury. And the air smells of rum and her feet bleed. 

“Mom?” Henry says behind her. Frozen. Terrified. 

Her insides grow cold. Thinking of him standing there, listening to all she’s said. Seeing the shards of glass lying in the grass. It was never supposed to be like this. This house was never meant to see her child tremble in fear. Because of her. Of what she has just done. 

“Hijo...” Regina begins, her body exhausted from the anger. From the magic. Still she reaches for her son. Because his face is pale and his lip is quivering. 

“Is that true?” He pulls away from her as her fingers brush his shoulder. As if she’s a thing to fear. “About my dad? About me?”

“Henry, please.” A shudder goes down her back. Regina knows what he must have concluded. That whatever he had seen had come for him. And that her words had been empty ones. “I can explain--”

He shakes his head and rubs at his eyes. Regina can feel them. The splinters in her heart, stabbing as they rush into her blood. 

“You said. You said...nothing could hurt me. You _promised_.” His breathing is cut. Like it was when he was toddler and he couldn’t stand it when she left him.

Regina gets on her knees, unable to find the words. Because his eyes are hard on her. She never wanted this. The day her son would ask why did she damn him to live. She tries to cup his cheek but he flinches away from her touch. 

“Mi vida, I…”

He slips away from her and runs. Runs to the front door.

“Henry!” Regina cries out as she chases after him. 

She cries until the pavement on the street is rough and hot under her feet. And he is nowhere to be found. 

* * *

She fixes things. That’s what Emma has always done. At eight it meant gluing her cast back together. Pressing it against the wall because her foster mother wouldn’t drive her to the hospital for that. At fifteen fixing the tires to the crappy bike some foster brother hadn’t wanted but Emma needed. Seventeen. Seventeen meant learning how to fuse wires. Spend hours and hours with a soldering iron. Screws in her pocket. Hoping to impress anyone who was looking. Guards, the warden. Anyone who could believe she wasn’t just a dumb kid. Because that is how Emma had felt. A dumb kid whose luck had run out. 

Now. With screws in her pockets trying to fix Mary Margaret’s toaster oven Emma feels dumb again. Disassembling all the parts and lying them out in a precise order. To find the culprit. Knobs, electric panels. Wires. She cuts the plastic holding them to check them for scorch marks. It’s all she knows how to do. Never stop. Never stop until it is fixed. Emma uses an exacto knife she’d found in a drawer and accidentally slices the very tip of a nail. Skin comes off all the same. 

“Son of bitch.” She hisses and sucks on her finger.

Her tongue tastes the iron in her blood as she searches for the first aid kit Mary Margaret had shown her on her first day. Emma washes the cut with cold water and pours the disinfectant over it. Wincing like she did as a kid. Dries, and dries with gauze until she can wrap it in a bandaid. It throbs but then again. Everything does. With the noise so loud and the memory of the shadow. 

Emma gets back to work. To pulling things apart, getting oil under her fingers. If she could just. If she could just find a way. To make everything better. Make it stop. Get Regina to listen to her, talk to her. Because something is broken. Broken and hurting them all. Her eyes trace the wires, the gold plating. If only Emma knew where to begin with Regina. Where to pull, where to push. How to examine the situation for all its parts. 

She lays them out in her mind, just as she had the knobs and screws of the oven. Kllian Jones had tried to kill Zelena. Emma is sure of it, he’d branded her. But somehow was overpowered by the Mills sisters. Killed in self-defense. And then. The jagged end. That piece that makes no sense lying next to others. He had stayed. Like a shadow. Emma knows that. Because a chill cuts down her spine like a newly sharpened blade. If she could just. Get Regina to trust her. Trust that what she says is true. 

A burned circuit. Probably scorched from a surge of electricity. That’s why the damn thing wouldn’t start. Emma breathes in relief in at least having done something with her day. She checks her phone. Half past four. It might be a long shot to think the Purisima hardware store has what she needs but it beats staying here. Emma texts something like an explanation to Mary Margaret and heads down to the Bug. 

The hardware store. It’s on the far side of town, almost out of town limits if she remembers it properly. Emma convinces herself to enjoy the short drive. Roll down her windows and take the long way. To focus on the crashing waves. Drown out the noise. The voice that grows so loud. That makes everything ache. She makes a left at Del Monte and hears the app go crazy at it at her apparent inability to follow directions. The Bug goes down smoothly, down the long way. And still. Her skin bristles with the loudness. 

That’s when Emma spots him. When her eyes burn. Henry Mills walking by the side of the road. His feet in sandals. Alone. With no one coming after him. She doesn’t think. Just stops her car and practically jumps out. 

“Hey, kid!” Emma calls after him. “Kid. Henry!” 

He turns and blinks up at her. His eyes grow wide with recognition.

“You’re that detective from the restaurant.” Henry’s voice is raspy with tears. “What...what do you want?” 

“OK. First off, I’m not a detective. Anymore,” Emma can ignore the pain and loudness for him. “And second, it’s kinda my business as a responsible adult to check on kids walking by the side of the road. Especially when they’re clearly upset.” 

“I’m not _upset._ ” He fixes with a scowl that is all Regina. 

“Oh no? Then what are you?”

“I’m...I’m running away!” He declares, raising his chin. 

Emma shakes her head. Because this she knows. This she can fix. 

“Not in those sandals you’re not.” She puts her hands on her eyes so she can level with him. “Take it from an expert runner-awayer.” 

“That’s not a real word.” His brow is still furrowed. Emma is counting that as a win. 

“It’s not? You learn something new every day.” 

The boy snorts and rolls his eyes at her. Henry Mills is nowhere near who she’d been as a kid. It isn’t desperation pushing him. It was an impulsive decision. But Emma reasons that no kid would turn down sweets. 

“How about we get something sugary and you tell me what’s got you all worked up?” Emma points to the convenience store behind him.

“I don’t know you.”

“You’re right, you're right,” She takes a deep breath. “My name’s Emma Swan. I left a group home when I was sixteen and didn’t look back. It wasn’t even my first time running away.”

“How many times did you?”

“Run? Oof, like maybe some six times? And let me tell you, it always sucked.” Emma can laugh about it now. “Ever eaten canned horse’s meat?”

“Ew, gross. _No_.” 

“I had that for a week before social services found me. Paired with stale crackers.” She watches him shift his weight from foot to the other. “How about I go get us something and you stay right here and promise not to go anywhere. Does that sound like a deal?”

He shrugs his shoulders and leans against a tree. She nods and rushes to the store. Quickly gets two chocolate cones from a freezer and asks the cashier to keep the change. Henry eagerly takes the ice cream. He’s halfway through it when he looks up at her and decides he is ready to talk.

“Your eyes are green and brown, like the colors exploded together,” He says, tilting his head up at her. “They weren’t like that this morning.”

“Umm,” Emma resists the urge of scratching her neck. This is too much out of the left field for her. “A trick of the light, probably.” 

“You’ve never noticed before?”

“Sure, just didn’t think anything of it.” She takes a bite of the wafer cookie and pictures her reflection. Sometimes, they’d be brighter. As if gold lined them and bled into the green. Gone as soon as it came. 

Henry nods gravely, as if it’s an important piece of information he’s ever received. Like he is suddenly determined. 

“So..why doesn’t my mom like you?”

Emma’s eyebrows shoot up as she fails to see whatever it is Henry seems to have discovered. 

“Why are you running away?” 

“I asked you first.” It’s only fair, fair in a way only a child’s logic could be. 

“Well. I guess for the same reason you didn’t trust me before,” Maybe it’s the truth. Or what Emma wants the truth to be. “She doesn’t really know me. Now you go.” 

Henry hesitates. Cleans his sticky hands on his shirt. 

“She lied to me.”

“Who? Your mom?”

“Mhmm.” His voice begins to break. “She and my aunt were fighting. My aunt said something about a gift. How it killed my dad. And it’s coming for me too. Because of mom.”

It knocks the wind out of Emma. To see his shoulders shaking with so much conviction. It occurs to her she is unprepared. Unequipped for this. But she has to try anyway. Because all she ever wanted at his age was someone who would try.

“Kid...listen. I’m not an expert on why parents keep stuff from their kids,” Emma kicks at a pebble on the ground. “But being an adult is hard. The world can be a scary place. And your mom, I think, only wants to protect you.” 

“She promised,” He rubs at his eyes to hide his tears. “Said that nothing could hurt me.”

“I’m sure she meant it. And that she’s trying her hardest.” Emma checks her phone. A quarter to six. “She must be worried sick about you. Wondering where you are.”

Henry looks down at his feet, bops his head. 

“Yeah. I think so.” 

“What do you say? Want me to drive you home?” Somehow. The noise and pain dial back. It’s more mute here and now.

He nods again.

Emma thinks she is beginning to understand.

* * *

Regina paces on the cold tile. It’s all she knows how to do. With the scream making everything vibrate, until it fractures. It’s so loud she can barely see Henry in her mind’s eyes. Feel him, wherever in town he might be. Too close to breaking to try and call her magic. Marian had driven up to the house when she’d called. Told her Henry had run and nothing else. Her sister wouldn’t look at her. But Zelena had tried to take her hand. Regina had snatched it away. 

“Something just comes over me sometimes. I don’t really know why.” She’d told her. “I really am---”

“I don’t care.” Regina had still been shaking. “Just go and help find my son.” 

Zelena had swallowed back her words. Nodded and left with Marian. Regina thinks that if something happens to her son she wouldn’t be able to find forgiveness in her. Not with all the noise and desperation already taking up room in her. 

A creak in the old stairs reminds her that she isn’t alone. Lucy is watching her with her knees tucked under her chin. Regina stops and opens her arms for her to come over. It’s selfish because she might need it more than Lucy. She rushes off her feet and practically crashes against her.

“I told him not to go, tia.” Lucy cries as she grasps at her blouse. “We felt the house shake and I said he shouldn’t go down pero como es bobo.” 

It’s said a perfect medley of Sabine and Jacinda, that self-assuredness and concern. Regina laughs and hugs her tighter. 

“Tesoro, this isn’t your fault..” 

“Why were you and Zelena fighting?”

“I’m afraid we have never been very good at being sisters,” Regina breathes out and rubs circles on Lucy’s back. “And today we got carried away. We shouldn’t have.” 

“Can’t you make up?” Lucy asks in a way only she could. A child, who like Henry, has only known love. Who can’t imagine life without her brother by her side. 

“Perhaps. It’s complicated.”

“I wish we never had to grow up.” She says, breaking away from her.

“Me too, sweetheart.,” Regina tucks her hair behind her ear. “Let’s--”

She hadn’t been searching for it. For the moment when the noise recedes and stillness wants to settle in. Regina feels tears welling up in her eyes. Impossible. It’s the only word for it. For the certainty that comes with the stillness. 

“Tia?”

Regina moves without thinking, on pure instinct. Swings the door open and rushes down the front lawn. Heart drumming in her chest. A yellow VW Beetle. Too old to be on the streets but that pulls up to the curb all the same. Henry. She can see Henry on the passenger seat. Her son swings the door open and Regina could crumble on the lawn with relief. 

“Henry!” She wraps her arms around him. “Are you hurt? Is everything---”

“I’m OK, mom.” He doesn’t smile. Not yet. 

“Don’t you ever do that again.” Regina lifts his chin with her thumb. 

Henry nods, exhales. In, out. His expression turns lighter, almost mischievous. The look that makes it impossible to deny him anything. Whatever it might be. 

“Can she stay for dinner?” 

There is no need to ask who. Regina knows by the peace running through her. Emma Swan. Who steps out of the car with dusk caught in her hair. She catches Regina’s gaze on her, because she always does. Green, like a half a possibility. Except today she doesn’t know what to do with it, except lie back against the car and wait. 

“ _Mom_ ,” Her son pulls at her hand. “Can Emma stay for dinner? I said she could but she really wanted me to check with you first. Please? ” 

“Yes, yes.” Regina answers, incapable of looking away. “She can stay for dinner.” 

* * *

The house on the hill. Overlooking the Sea, with a garden that surrounds it. Emma had held her breath as Henry gave her directions. Those roots in her chest had stirred as she’d killed the engine. Contemplated what it would mean to take this route every day. To have this be hers too. The quiet had allowed those thoughts. As she’d gotten tangled in Regina’s gaze. She’d stood there, on barefeet. Red-eyed and Emma had needed a moment. Henry had run up to her and pulled her by the hand. 

“Kid, are you sure about this?” She’d asked, still thinking about this morning. 

“Duh,” He’d rolled his eyes. “It’s just good manners to feed the person who brought you home.” 

Emma had struggled to keep her wonder all to herself. To follow after Regina, immediately feel the freshness inside the house. As if a breeze were always running through it. She’d said nothing at the wooden beams, at the bright orange tile. At the furniture that all appeared hand-carved. Emma had bitten her lips at a wall covered in frames and photos. And she’d thought that things were beginning to make sense. But not entirely, not really, until the front door swings open. When Marian rushes in and hugs Henry to her body. Calls after Regina and follows the sound of her voice. Brakes screech to a halt outside and two other women stumble through the door. In matching chef’s coats and a worried look on their face. 

“Oh thank God.” They both breathe at the sight of Henry. 

“Mom, mama!” A girl about Henry’s age runs past Emma and into their waiting arms. “What took you so long?”

They all laugh and talk over each other. Emma considers leaving before anyone notices her. When everyone is still busy with their relief. But. Zelena Mills walks in and the room goes quiet at the sight of her. Henry’s words come to mind, it’d been something Zelena had said that pushed him to take off. Something drops in Emma’s stomach too. 

“Who found him?” Zelena asks, only pretending to be unconcerned. 

Marian looks at the two other women before Henry untangles himself from their attention.

“Emma did.” He points directly at her and destroys any opportunity she might have had to escape. “She drove me home and everything.” 

“Really?” Marian asks, returning with a dishrag on her shoulder. 

“And you’re staying for dinner.” One of the women takes her by elbow and begins to walk with her. “I’m Jacinda. That’s our girl Lucy.” 

Her chin is pointed in the direction of the girl who seems to be telling Henry off in her own right. 

“Umm, hi.” Emma suddenly feels overwhelmed. There has never been this much of a fuss made about her. 

“I’m Sabine, her long suffering wife.” She says unpinning her hair and walking ahead. 

“It’s nice to--”

“Ay, go help with dinner you!” Jacinda tells her and tightens her grip on Emma.

“Do you see what I mean?” Sabine winks at them before heading to what must be the kitchen. 

Emma looks back and finds Zelena still standing at the foyer. Watching the scene unfold with her arms crossed. She recognizes the look on her face. The one every older foster kid had worn but tried to hide whenever a newer and younger kid had come into the house. Emma had been her more times than she could count. Jacinda tugs at her with a smile on her face. 

“Tell me, how _did_ you find Henry?” She asks as they step into the kitchen. 

Regina glances at them through the steam of a boiling pot. It makes her forget words, the way her chest rises and falls. Dumbstruck. That’s the word she remembers first. 

“Luck.” Emma says truthfully. It’s luck that she’s here. “I was driving to the hardware store when I saw him.” 

“Maybe it was in the cards.” 

“Yeah,” She swallows, knowing she is being watched. “The cards.” 

There is a loud and metallic crash behind them. Emma flinches at the sound and moves on instinct. But she is held firmly in place while Regina gathers the pot and widens her eyes at her friend. A sort of silent exchange that ends with Jacinda smirking and Regina turning her back on her. 

“Have you ever had them read?” She asks as she lets go of Emma and opens the cutlery drawer. “Your cards, I mean.”

“No. At least I don’t think so?” Emma stuffs her hands in her pockets and watches how Regina raises her shoulders. So many, too many questions. 

“Jay…” Her wife warns as she tastes a sauce. 

“What?”

“Leave it.” 

“Fine .” Jacinda retrieves some glasses and hands half to Emma. At that, she notices, Regina seems to deflate. 

She can’t help but be relieved too. To distract herself with setting half the table and doing as she’s told. Emma understands this to be a moment. A peek into someone else’s life and in whatever years come she will revisit it. Like a box of secrets and trinkets under a bed. Things that could have been special. Emma is told to sit like she belongs at the table. Sit while she watches Zelena drift in and sit at the far end of the table. Chin in her hand, trying so desperately to look unbothered. She should say something, maybe. Make small talk, but hot plates and pans find their way to the table. Everyone settles into a place. Everyone seems to be looking at her. 

“You’re the guest of honor,” Zelena finally speaks to her and rolls her eyes. “You’re supposed to serve yourself first.” 

“ _Zelena_.” Regina hisses at her sister and keeps her eyes on Emma. 

A warm sort of embarrassment settles in Emma’s chest, spreads up to her cheeks. She leans forward to help herself to mashed potatoes and eggplant. At that moment Lucy holds in a gasp, so loudly the latte almost slips from her grasp. The girl looks straight at her and then it’s apparent that Henry has kicked her under the table. His eyes widening in the same way Regina’s had and Lucy crosses her arms. 

“What is going on you two?” Sabine asks, tilting her head. 

“Nothing.” They both reply as Emma finally settles back in her seat. 

“So, Emma, where are you from?” Marian blinks and smiles. Same as she did this morning. 

“Perhaps don’t overwhelm her, dear.” Regina cuts in as she pours herself some wine. 

“It’s OK, really.” She can do it. Get lost in a game of pretend. When there isn’t a shadow hanging over them and the world has always been this quiet. “Do you want the short answer or the long answer?”

“Long answer,” Jacinda replies. “No question about it.” 

Emma shakes her head at that and takes a bite from her eggplant. It’s easy. Easy to get the words out. 

“I was found somewhere in Maine, so I guess you could---”

“Found?” Regina asks and the whole table goes silent. “What do you mean you were found?”

“Yeah, whoever my folks were, they decided to leave me by the side of the road. ” She presses her lips together and glances in Regina’s direction. Finds no pity there, nothing that would make her regret her words. “I pretty much grew up all over the place. Fell in with the wrong sort of people and ended up in juvie for--” 

“Odd choice to become a cop, then,” Zelena says pointing her fork at her. “Shouldn’t that have persuaded you otherwise? Or did you enjoy the carceral system?” 

All eyes are on her. It’s obvious this was something the sisters had kept secret. The air becomes charged with it. Regina looks at her like Emma holds her whole life in a single thread. As if she could cut it right here, right now. So. She laughs, with her head thrown back. Laughs until the air is lighter, until whatever edges Regina had thought sharp seem round and dull.

“I’ve never claimed to be the brightest. I...I made some mistakes but better late than never, right?” Emma says and sees how Regina breathes a little easier. “So. Next question? And no you can’t have dental records.”

“I like her.” Sabine tells Regina. Emma has to bite down her smile.

Pretending comes too easy. Returning laughs, eating until her head is warm. The roots ache to be let loose, let them settle here. Emma allows herself to want. To hurt with it, with a whole table of people who had allowed her in. And the world is quiet except for the sound of crickets. And Regina. Regina who hardly speaks but can’t seem to look away. It could be that the room has gotten smaller, that the ache has gotten too much to handle. But Emma suddenly needs air. She excuses herself and finds the doors to the garden. 

The garden overlooking the water. So high up that it seemed unreachable. In, out. In, out. Up, down. The crickets and the distant sound of waves. Emma tries to ground herself before she heads back in and says her goodbyes. 

“I never get tired of the view.” Regina says, as the doors click closed. 

“It’s something.” Emma’s heart beats as the night tangles itself in Regina’s hair. “I..uh, thanks for having me over. I know you didn’t exactly plan or want this--”

“You brought my son back to me. That’s all I care about.” She tells her, handing her a beer. 

A gesture of good faith. They are both round and dull edges now. 

“Your family…”

A laugh. Emma hears it and is glad the loudness always quiets down for them. So she can hear it. Remember it when she pulls it out from her box of treasures some years down the line. When this place is only a memory. 

“They mean well. However over the top they might be.” 

“They care about you.” The beer is too light on her lips but she welcomes how cold it is. “I can’t blame them for that.” 

“I suppose.” Regina closes her eyes and sucks in a breath. “When you found Henry, how was he?” 

“He seemed pretty upset. Nothing ice cream couldn’t fix though.” With her pulse still racing she decides to push. Push her luck. “But he said something about a gift or a curse coming for him? I didn't really press him on that.” 

It makes Regina focus on the horizon ahead of them. At the growing darkness. Bite her lip and consider her words. Every unsaid one Emma can feel falling on her skin. 

“This is the part where I admit the rumors are true.” Her voice is tinted with bitterness and sadness. “Not all of them. Just the bits and pieces about witchcraft they manage to get right.” 

Emma takes one, two swigs from her beer. It isn’t a surprise but she cannot find the right thing to say. If there is such a thing out here. With her roots begging to be released and allowed the room they want. She bops her head and offers Regina a sip. 

“It’s mostly herbs and prayers, if you were wondering.” Regina returns the bottle after a grimace. 

“I wasn’t.” Emma tells her with a shrug. “OK. Maybe a little.” 

A breeze hits them, lifting their hair as it passes them. She resists the temptation to ask if that’s magic too. The way the world seems to bend around their moods. If there is a name, a spell for that. 

“It wasn’t always like that. My mother took more sinister approaches that had been passed down to her,” She holds a hand up to her lips and then wipes at her eyes with her knuckles. “I’m afraid what Henry means is something related to that. A woman in my family. She was betrayed by her lover and she made it so that every man we ever came to love died. No matter if they deserved it or not.” 

“Fuck.” 

“You can say that again.” 

It isn’t easy anymore. To pretend. It could be magic, booze that moves Emma to reach for Regina’s hand. Because the pieces are all here. Regina has spent years waiting for the day her life would be over. And now there is a shadow, a thing that could take it all away sooner than she could have predicted. 

“Maybe curses are only as real as we think they are.” It’s a whisper because Emma is so unsure, knows so little of this world. 

“Not this one.” Regina’s fingers close around hers. “Believe me.” 

“I’m sorry.” The wind changes again, colder around them. It must be some kind of spell. “If...If you ever need me, you know where to find me.” 

The words slip before Emma can think that she has gone too far. Run out of luck.

But. Regina’s lips form the smallest of smiles. One that keeps the world so still, so quiet. 

“Thank you, Emma.” 

  
  



	7. Chapter 7

It hadn’t been easy. Regina’s chest is still heavy with it. From having to lay out the complexities of the truth to her son. Henry had buried himself underneath pillows as Regina spoke. Told him about papi. About the day his heart stopped because they had loved him so much. The smell of tobacco and cafe con pan. How he kissed their hair and the crow's feet around his eyes. Regina had taken his hand and explained Daniel to him. Not all, not everything. How gentle and caring he had been. The lullabies he sang for Henry. How he never minded getting bit by a dog. All he had given her. That had been enough. 

“And me? What about me?” He hadn’t cried, he’d been so strong. 

“It won’t take you. I’ll make sure of it _.”_ With her life, Regina had meant it with her life. She had cried and kissed his forehead. 

“Maybe Emma can help.” Henry had been so serious in his proposal, so willing to cling to the idea that all she could do was smile. 

“Why do you say that?” 

“Because!” He’d narrowed his eyes at her, as if Regina had forgotten something. “Because... I think she could and you’re _always_ saying how I have a sharp intuition.” 

“The sharpest.” She’d said so full. “I'll keep that in mind.” 

Regina hadn’t lied. Emma Swan hasn’t left her thoughts since. Been there as she slipped out of her clothes and tended to her broken skin. In the darkness of her dreams. In the morning light that came through the window. Here, now. When Regina goes through her planner. Schedules and obligations. Perhaps her life could go back to normal. The noise inside fade away into silence. Take the guilt, the nightmares with it. Make her house become unplagued by apparitions. No amulets around her son’s wrists. Maybe, maybe. Regina should question, Dissect what it is about Emma that makes everything go calm. Still inside her. But for now, for this Sunday morning she decides to only accept it. Without explanation. 

She dunks her bread in the coffee as she adds reminders to her calendar. Hears the tell-tale ll signs that Sabine is awake too. The delicate steps from the hallway to the bath, Jacinda’s half hearted complaints about it being too damn early, coño. Por qué hizo Dios la misa tan temprano, that should have been the sin. It isn’t long until Sabine is saying her good mornings and setting up her woven basket and a pouch of bones in the sunroom. 

“Time for another reading?” Regina sips the last of her coffee and watches her friend with her curiosity.

Sabine is gifted, that much she has always understood. Jacinda had learned, honed card readings with time. Not her. Sabine can tap into the other side whenever she wills. Knows how to interpret what it is her ancestors are saying. 

“I’d say so, especially after last night,” She raises her brows. “You’ve never let someone come into the house before.” 

“I couldn’t not invite the woman in. What type of example would that set?” 

“Mhmm,” Sabine hums and sticks her hand into the pouch. “Nothing to do with Jay’s predictions.” 

“Absolutely not.” She purses lips enough to give her words more credibility. 

“And the casual gazing full of longing was…”

“Incidental. And there was no longing.” 

There had been no glances, no held gazing. Not intentional at least. But the golden details of the cards, Regina had picked them up. All over Emma, like flecks of gold leaf. Brighter in the light. Warm and impossible to not try and keep. The color of Emma’s hair in the Sun. Her laugh at the dinner table had been lined with it. All the things that could never be. 

Sabine sighs as if she were dealing with a lost cause. Because she is right, Regina had never brought a stranger into the house before. Let alone let her set the table. Stand in her garden and breathe the night in. No. Regina had never done that for anyone.

“Lucky for you this is my reading not yours.” Her fingers are quick to let go of the tokens that make up her bones. Each with a meaning only Sabine can decipher.

A pointed sea-shell lands on a penny facing West, a dice rolls until it settles on six. Nothing Regina can comprehend but Sabine furrows her brow, all play and teasing gone from her face. 

“Is something wrong?” 

Sabine closes her eyes, as if she is listening for the answer. Breathes in and out. The rhythm of them matches the steps and creaks from the old stairs. Regina recognizes her robe before Zelena steps into the kitchen. 

“Isn’t it too early for...whatever it is you’re doing?” She squints at the sight of them, pours herself a glass of water. 

Sabine opens her eyes, tightens her fingers into a fist. Grasping at the fabric of her own robe. 

“It’s eight, hardly too early for anything.” Regina points out, wishing she understood the look on her friend’s face. The change in her sister’s eyes. 

Zelena drums her fingers on the thick glass and smirks. As if she knows what Regina fails to understand. 

“Have fun, I’m going back to bed,” She says, turning on her heel and leaving. “I need my beauty sleep.” 

Regina should question, should dissect. Ask what is it that Sabine saw, what her ancestors whispered. She can’t bring herself to do it. Because the voice returns, loud enough that skin bristles. And guilt is that stone again, sitting at the pit of her stomach. Asking would mean admitting that she brushed the red dirt under her nails. Remembering milky blue eyes. Flies, flies all around.

No. She doesn’t ask and Sabine puts her tokens away. The graveness of her expression only gone when Lucy shuffles into the room, her pillow hair intact. 

“Mama, do we _have_ to go to mass?” She yawns as she climbs onto her mother’s lap. 

“Yes bebe,” Sabine glances at Regina only to look away. “I’m afraid we do.” 

* * *

Emma is still dizzy with it. Two days and the roots in her chest have run out of room. The tips of her fingers tingle from where she’d held Regina’s hand. Even where they’re stained with grease and burned from having fixed Mary Margaret’s toaster oven. Sunday had been a haze, with the noise coming and going. Becoming so loud at times that she had no choice but to sit in it. The rest of the day had been sunlight and thoughts of Regina. Of her saying her goodbyes by the front door, the sharpness of her features dissolving into something soft when Emma looked up at her. 

Two days and now she is walking down the streets of Purisima putting up flyers offering her services as a handywoman. Her pockets are dangerously empty and though she doubts Mary Margaret would kick her out Emma can’t afford to be out of work for much longer. 

However long that might be. 

It’s a good day outside. Blue skyed and clear. The quiet chatter of people mingles with the sound inside her. Emma slips into an old habit. Imagines what it would be like to have always belonged here. She would know the names of the people eyeing her. There wouldn’t be a need to staple hastily made flyers to a pole. People would just know when to call her. The air would be less heavy, less charged with Regina and Zelena’s secrets. 

Emma stuffs her remaining them into her back pocket and keeps a steady pace down Mainstreet. She hopes, not so secretly, that there will be some excuse. Something that makes her stop near Regina’s shop. See her, memorize the details of the moment. The wind rushes past her and Emma recognizes all the clicks within her. For when she is nearing Regina and everything that makes her up just slows down. 

Like magic. Or definitely magic, Regina is bent down in the trunk of her car. Struggling with what must be another rug of flowers. It’s unsubtle and obvious how Emma rushes down the pavement to catch the falling flowers. 

“Need a hand?” She asks, her voice caught in the most embarrassing way. 

“You know, I just might.” Regina breathes out, like she isn’t at all surprised Emma is here. 

Her dark hair falls to cover her face as Regina holds onto one end of the load while rummaging her purse for her keys. Emma holds the other end, so that nothing slips out. The perfume of the reds and yellows tangles itself with the aching roots inside her chest. 

“You’re alone today?” It’s mid-morning and the lights inside the shop are all off. 

“Marian had to drive her mother to a doctor’s appointment in the city,” Regina tells her as she unlocks the door. “And Zelena is...Zelena.” 

Emma nods as they enter the shop and she is led to the backroom. Neatly organized, labelled. The cleanest work stations Emma has ever seen. All Regina, down to the alphabetized oils. She remembers how Marian had moved behind the counter, how clearly in possession of the place she’d been. But Zelena. She struggles to find a place for her here. It’s not deliberate but she imagines it must sting the same. 

“This is none of my business--” Emma begins as she sets down the flowers on a counter.

“Oh, I think you crossed that line a while ago.” Regina smirks. “Why worry about it now?” 

She ducks her head and bites the inside of her cheek. Yeah, why worry about it now. In the backroom when the air is heavy with perfume and Emma has already asked three or four too many questions. 

“I know it doesn’t look it,” Emma says, caught in the dark her eyes. “But I think your sister might be trying.” 

“I’m afraid Zelena and trying don’t often go in the same sentence.” 

Sisters. All Emma ever had was the hyphenated version. To make it less real. Maybe this is some real-sister complicated emotion. This resentment that is simmering away under Regina’s lips. 

“I’d cut her some slack,” she says, the roots curling and curling. “It can’t have been easy.” 

Emma won’t say it. That dark thing they ended up sharing. Regina turns her attention to the flowers and nods. Shoulders tighter. Tighter than her grip on those stems. No. It can't have been easy, whatever it is that saved their lives.

“Growing up, there were times when we could be good to each other,” Regina says quietly. “And I thought she was the only one who could possibly understand but lately...I don’t know.” 

“In my experience, you can’t really gauge what someone is going through. People don’t always match what we think they should be like.” 

“She has always been so unpredictable. Like a whirlwind that would take you if you weren’t looking.” 

“I kind of got that.” 

Sheila and Carmen seemed that way too. From what she could glean from files and old posts. Emma’s shoulders drop thinking of how Zelena isn’t a life boiled down to a few sheets of paper on a desk somewhere. Regina's expression softens. She feels it too. Maybe, maybe. Without having to say it. Emma could look at her all day. To think. Saturday morning feels like a lifetime ago. When she couldn’t get her to listen, to let her stay. 

“You must have been a shame to your profession.” A compliment. Almost. 

“So I was told. Many times.” Emma feels her smile, it’s no use trying to bite it down. “And give me some credit, I’m this town’s first handywoman.” 

She pulls out a flyer from her back pocket, not without missing how Regina’s eyes linger on her. 

“You’re staying?” It’s soft, her touch when she takes the flyer from her. 

“I..uuh, yeah.” Up down. Up, down. Emma is back to that. “For the time being.” 

“For the time being.” Regina repeats and mirrors her smile. “There is one of those IKEA shelves Marian swore she would get to but it’s still sitting in its box.” 

“You want to hire me?” The beat is relentless inside her, she is sure the warmth on her face and chest is giving her away. 

“I _think_ I can afford you.” She tells her as she abandons the flowers and walks past her. With purpose and Emma feels she might burst. With the want lodged so deep inside her chest. 

Maybe it is the Earth’s magnetism that moves Emma’s feet. That pulls her to Regina. Who turns around, as if they really are drawn to each other. 

“This is it.” Regina says as she points to the box on the floor. Emma’s eyes don't follow, not when they’re a half breath away. 

“It could take me awhile.” The words tremble out of her. 

“I am aware.” Her lips part, perfectly lined a deep red. 

“And you’re OK with that?” Emma knows what it is she is asking, the ache of those wanting roots won't let her forget. “With me? With--”

“Yes,” Regina tells her, stepping closer. Closer than that night at the bar that had almost made her lose her mind. “I wouldn't have asked otherwise.” 

Emma nods and leans forward. Loses what’s left of her mind when she feels the brush of Regina’s lips on hers. Barely there, like a whisper. In all this quiet, this quiet that is only theirs. Made by them. 

The bell above the door chimes. The noise vibrates until it reaches her. Gets in between her ribs. Emma could scream. Not now, not now because everything inside is pulsating. Her ears, her chest. The ends of her fingers. 

“Hello? Is anyone here?” An obvious customer with the shrillest voice says into the air. “The sign says you’re open!” 

“Motherfucker.” Emma hisses and pinches her eyes shut. “Sorry.” 

“Hello!”

“I hate this town.” Regina says under her breath. She runs her fingers over Emma’s knuckles. Before she pulls away altogether and leaves Emma with her want. 

* * *

The tile is cold underneath her. Emma knows her tank top has ridden up but she isn’t in the mood to care. The sink at Granny’s is clogged and she is only thinking of not getting hit in the face with gunk. It’s the cleanest she has felt in years with sweat running down her arms. With the noise inside still there, still irking the pores of her skin. Waitresses come in and out of the kitchen, they all move along the rhythm of it. 

“How much longer will it be, girl?” Mrs. Lucas asks gruffly as she prods Emma’s boot. “Plates are piling up.” 

“Not too long.” Emma tells her sliding from under the sink. “But you really need to get a garbage disposal.” 

“Did Ruby put you up to this?”

“No?” She says as the old woman furrows her brow.

“Anyway, it’s ready.” Mrs. Lucas grunts, as if that adds any sense to her words. “Your lunch.” 

She only knows to tilt her head in confusion. The timing is right but Emma doesn’t remember putting in an order. But she figures it’s best not to keep asking any more questions, not when Mrs. Lucas already looks like she might be about to hit her with a wrench.

“It’s on the counter, don’t think I’m letting you eat in here.” 

“Uh, thanks.” Emma wipes at her hands on a rag and then heads to the bathroom to wash up. 

When she steps into the dining area it makes sense. It’s that silence again, the one she has grown addicted to. If Emma is grinning at the idea of Regina, if her heart only knows to go up and down, then it’s all she needs. They hadn’t gone any further than the almost kiss. Didn’t have the time for another stolen moment and Emma’s lips have burned with the memory ever since. 

Regina is sitting at the bar, swirling the ice of her drink with a straw. Zelena next to her, stealing food from her plate. A lone burger and fries sit a space away from them. For a second, Emma lets her mind wander off with that image. A snapshot of a life where she belongs to Regina, belongs in this place with her. Where she wakes up in that house on the hill and Regina makes it a rule to have lunch together. 

“Damn, I was about to claim that.” Zelena tells her as Emma slides onto the stool. 

“You ordered those extra onion rings,” Regina says but she is looking at Emma. “While declaring they would go on a tab I don’t have.” 

“What do you expect me to do? I’m _famished._ ” She blows air through her lips. Fingernails click against the linoleum, Emma swears she could recognize the rhythm. Gone too quickly. 

“Enjoying the view, are you?” 

“Uh, me?” Emma looks away, signaling Ruby for a drink. 

“No. The other former detective making eyes at my sister.” Zelena smirks just as Regina hides her face under her palm. “It’s sickening.” 

“For God’s sake, Zelena. Give it a rest.” 

“Flowers, dinner, and now lunch?” She leans towards Emma. “You must be something special.” 

A mortified sound comes from Regina and Emma only shakes her head. Amused. Because this is Zelena trying. The effort she puts into taunting her, trying to expose her. For whatever danger Emma might pose to them. And Regina is trying too. Letting herself be embarrassed.

“I wouldn’t know about special,” It’s the truth. “Lucky, maybe.” 

“Oooh.” Zelena exaggerates the one syllable and widens her eyes. “Did you catch that, Regina?”

“I’m sorry about my sister,” Regina tells her as she pulls Zelena back to her seat. “She has no self-awareness.” 

“It’s really--” Emma begins as she picks up a fry off her plate. 

“It’s called a personality.” Zelena cuts her off and throws back a glare at Regina. 

“An overabundance of it.” 

Emma laughs and knows that the smile stays on her lips. Ruby comes back with a cool glass of soda and that order of onion rings. 

“Are you planning on sharing those?” She dares to ask Zelena, because it feels like Emma might be allowed. To fit here, in this place with them. 

“Obviously not.” Zelena plops one into her mouth. “But that doesn’t mean I am ungenerous. I’ll make you a deal.” 

“Yeah?”

“You really don’t want to be making a --” Regina says, smacking her sister on the arm. 

“Get me two slices of blue-berry pie and I let you have your little lunch date with my sister.” She knocks shoulders with Regina. “Unchaperoned.” 

“I’m going to _wring_ your neck when--”” She says but her dark eyes travel back to Emma. 

“Deal.” Emma shrugs and holds a breath in. At Regina’s stunned expression. 

“Never say I don’t do anything for you, sis.” Zelena kisses Regina’s cheek.

Emma swears. There is something there. In the dark of her eyes. It passes but leaves a cold, tight feeling in her chest. 

  
  


* * *

A Thursday night, laundry night. It should be like any other. Any other before Emma. But there are only nights after Emma now. Regina searches her memories. The half-remembered ones from childhood. Those years before she had turned eighteen and married Daniel. Regina feels the cotton of the sheets as she pulls them out from the dryer and tries to see faces. Faces of girls, of women who had made her insides flutter. Who had made her wish, wish she lived anywhere but this house. Few had. Regina had known back then to not let herself get carried away. None had been like Emma. But she knows that. Has known since she first saw her. Since her fingers ran on the back of Emma’s hand. That steady, burning flame. 

Burning since she had last seen her. The memory of the tips of Emma’s fingers brushing against hers at Granny’s. Lingering after Regina had passed the pepper, the one Emma couldn’t reach. The smile on her lips had been indiscreet and the world had been so quiet. So steady when those bright eyes of hers found hers, that Regina hadn’t cared. If her lips had stretched to match Emma’s smile, in front of everyone. She moves to the kitchen with her chest lighter. The noise inside subdued, just enough to let her breathe. 

“Quien te mira.” Jacinda says, her voice beyond pleased. 

“Quien me mira que?” Regina counters as she bites down on her lip. 

Jacinda shakes her head and walks over to Sabine to put the corners of a duvet together. 

“She wants you to admit that the cards didn’t lie,” Sabine tells her. “And for my sake I’d say, please do.” 

“Didn’t lie about what?” She sets the hamper down in a chair and straightens her shoulders. Regina will at least have the decency to deny these things. 

“Don’t act like you don’t know I know. I have eyes everywhere.” Jacinda glares at her as she folds a pillow case. 

“By ‘eyes’ you mean Marian.” 

“And the kids.” Sabine adds, earning herself a kiss on the teeth from her wife. “Not that you aren’t completely obvious, mind you.” 

Regina presses her lips into a line. Papi used to say she wore her heart on her sleeve. Had to learn, teach herself how to hide it. She thought she had mastered it with the years. But perhaps Emma is making her unlearn it all. 

“If it’s completely obvious then there is nothing to tell.” 

“Uuy, es que--”

The stairs behind them creak and a humming carries through. The click of heels on the tile. Zelena practically sweeps past them. To the liquor cabinet. Looking like a whirlwind, one that grows and grows with the heat of the air. Something is different about her tonight. Wilder. Her arms are bare and Regina can see that red brand. The skull and bones. Almost like she is wearing it as a badge of honor. The noise, the scream returns at the sight of her. Regina’s skin hurts with it.

“You think you would have learned by now to keep Navy Imperial in the cupboard.” Her voice is raspy and Zelena isn’t looking at her. Looks through her. “Where is the food?”

“There are some leftovers in the fridge.” Regina grits her teeth. Her sister is trying, she has to be. Even if it might not seem that way.

_“Leftovers?”_ Zelena says with so much venom that she feels it inject itself into her blood. 

“The kitchen is closed, I’m afraid.” Her jaw locks and the glass in the cupboards shakes.

Her sister scoffs and Regina has to compose herself. She hadn’t been this way at Granny’s. Not this morning. Sabine and Jacinda’s quiet and knowing looks are hard to miss. Her heart drops, drops like that cold stone at the pit of her stomach. There is something they haven’t told her, Regina can feel it now. Mixing in with the venom. The truth she had wanted to ignore. 

“You have a sharp tongue, I’ll give you that.” A strange sound slips into her words. Familiar but not too familiar. Enough to spread cold through her. 

“What do you want, Zelena?” 

“Since I have been so rudely made to feel unwelcome tonight,” Her sister clicks her tongue, as she practically sneers at Sabine and Jacinda. “Some money would be nice. Can’t afford a proper dinner on spare change.”

“You can’t be serious.”

“As serious as a dead man.” Her teeth look so white, so sharp when she smiles. “Now, what is it going to be?” 

Regina weighs her options. Lights already flickering around her. Lucy and Henry are upstairs, freshly put to bed. The house will shake, pull them out of sleep. Henry, Henry. That cold look of fear on his expression again. The dark in Zelena’s eyes is so cold it burns her. 

“Fine.” She concedes, her mind screaming about it. 

Regina doesn’t count the bills when she retrieves them from her purse. The noise doesn’t allow for anything else but fury. Zelena quickly snatches them away.

“Thanks, love.” Her eyebrow is quirked and she returns to her humming as she walks away. 

Breathe. She tries to breathe as the energy of the house still sparks off her body. When everything about her is cold. A stark sound cuts through the house. A car revving out of the driveway. 

“She took my car,” Breathing isn’t working anymore. “ Hija de la gran mil _puta._ ” 

It’s there again. That knowing and quiet look between Sabine and Jacinda. Gulps, and deep breaths. No. No. It is so bitter on her tongue. 

“Please. Whatever you’re going to say, don’t say it.” Her voice cracks, the way it hasn’t in years.

“Honey,” Sabine steps closer. “Something is not right. It follows your sister like a dark cloud. And I think you know that.” 

Regina nods. No words will come out when the scream goes and goes. Reverberates against the bone. 

“We’ve been talking, you know?” Jacinda tries to be gentle, assuring that what is coming is sure to be devastating. “Maybe we should go--”

“ _No.”_ She chokes out with a hand over her mouth. “This is your home.” 

“It’s also your sister’s.” 

Jacinda reaches for her hand and it breaks her. Finally. Dirt, red under her nails. Blue, milky blue eyes. Flies, flies everywhere. 

“Something happened. That weekend when you went and got your sister,” Sabine whispers as she averts her eyes away from her. “It’s in the walls of the house.I can hear them whispering. I...I want to be wrong. Tell me I’m wrong.” 

The scream could bend Regina’s knees. And she wants badly to let herself twist in pain. To let it hurt. Anything. So long as it stops. So long as she doesn’t have to endure this agony anymore. Muela, muela. Weak, weaker than mother raised her to be. 

“I...” Her cheeks are hot with tears. “I can’t.” 

Jacinda squeezes her hand but Regina slips away from her grasp. Up, down. Up, down. She cannot face the look in their eyes. Cannot speak the truth. Not to them. Up, down. Up, down. The pain is splitting her head open. Like lighting might strike her open. Up, down. She needs the quiet. The world to stand still. 

She runs. Doesn’t hear them call after her. Takes nothing with her. Runs out to the street. Down the hill, in the dark. Hurting, the world spinning around her. Up, down. Up, down. Regina keeps running past street names and stop lights. Until she finds the cream colored building, gets her knees to take her up the stairs. She knocks, doesn’t know how many times. Up, down. Up, down. The door swings open. And in a blink there is quiet. Silence spreads through her at the sight of her. Loose hair that falls on her bare shoulders. Falls soft and golden. 

“Regina.” Emma breathes out, as if she had been expecting her. As if she had been hurting too. “What’s--” 

“Let me come in. Please.” Regina sees the shake of her hands when Emma takes them. 

When she leads her in. Into the dimmed yellows of the apartment. The white trim and fabricated warmth of the place. Too big, too small. Not a place that fits Emma. They stand nowhere, somewhere in the middle of it all.

“It’s just us.” She tells her, her touch so gentle, almost hesitant on her skin. “So, uh, you don’t have to be afraid.” 

“I think I’m beyond that.” 

“Do you want to tell me what’s wrong?” Emma’s eyes are bright. Too kind for what she is about to say.

Whatever echoes in Regina’s mind remind her that it’s better than she deserves. The air catches in her chest when the burn of Emma’s gaze runs through her. Up, down. Up, down. Her heart beats with the confession. That has often escaped her tongue. Slipped every time Emma had asked. Unable to lie. 

“I killed him.” A tremor travels down her spine. 

“Regina--” 

“I killed him.” She interrupts because Emma has to know. “I knew that he was going to...out in the highway. Both of us. I put too much belladonna in his rum. I didn’t mean to. I just wanted him to stop. He was so heavy...Fuck. We tried to..” 

The white veve on the tile of mother’s tearoom. Whispers, whispers in her blood. Dirt, red under fingernails. Flies, flies. More than she can count. Her tongue is tied on that.

“Is it really so awful that there is one less man like him out there?” Regina strangles a sob and her knees buckle. “One less…”

“No. It’s not.” Emma’s hand steadies her by the waist.

“Then why is my life falling apart?” The salt stings her eyes. “Why am I being punished? Why--”

“Hey, hey. No,” It’s so determined, convinced. “Life doesn’t work like that. You did what you told me when I first asked you. You got your sister out of a bad situation.” 

“There is this _poison_ in the air now. So many things that I didn’t want to see.” 

“Things that squeeze at your lungs?” It’s a question that Emma already has the answer to. “Evil things?”

Regina nods. Because it’s real. Real outside the noise outside her head. Has been real this whole time. And all she had done was bury her head in the sand. 

“We’ll fix it.” 

“There is no fixing this.” 

“I don’t accept that.” Emma is that immovable object. Regina can see it now, feeling the strength of her belief. 

“Why do you care?” Since the truth has spilled out from her she craves it from Emma too. “This whole time, why do you care what happens to me? To my family?” 

“I just do. Isn’t that enough?” Golden hearted. Gold that spreads to all the details that make her up. “What do you need? Tell me--”

Regina locks their fingers together and kisses her. Like she has wanted to all this time. Lets the kiss burn, spread through her. Go up. Go down. Rush through her blood, silence those whispers. 

“I don’t want to think for a while.” She tells her when her breath is warm on her cheeks.

“I can help with that.” Emma runs her fingers through her hair. 

Brings her closer until her teeth are grazing her lips. And the lights are dancing in the apartment, making the yellows dimmer. Emma’s fingers travel through her lower back, the trail of them is a line of fire. Like an ignition. As if all this time Regina has been nothing but a wick waiting for a match. Her lip finds Regina’s pulse, tongue matching its heavy beating. Before kissing her way back to Regina’s lips. Her body, her magic is crazy with it. And the world is quiet. Nothing but a heartbeat. She can’t get enough. 

Emma fumbles with the buttons of her blouse as they stumble into the bedroom. The air hits Regina’s skin and Emma is so warm on her. Warmer than she would have thought. Strong when she lifts her, just enough to make Regina whine. Ache. The sheets are cool when Regina’s bare back hits them. Emma is lost, kissing underneath her jaw. It’ll leave a mark, Regina thinks for the first time in her life. It’ll leave a mark and she does not care. 

“Is this OK?” Emma asks, with her mouth under the curve of her breast.

“Yes.” Everything beats. For that secret tenderness of Emma’s. The one Regina had seen shining out of her. “Let me see you. I want to see you.” 

She tugs at Emma’s tank top and feels her laugh on her skin. It makes her toes curls. How her hair tickles her. It makes Regina quake. The whole place with her. 

“Are we doing that?” She laughs again. 

“ _Emma._ ” It’s raw, the want. It’s the whole answer. 

“OK, OK.” 

Her whole chest feels like it might explode when Emma straddles her. Pulls her shirt off, to reveal the flushed skin underneath. The ups and downs of her chest. Regina has never seen anything like her. Nothing, nothing. She reaches for her like she might the moon. Regina lets her fingers roam, find the mole on her neck. Emma smiles, as the lights flutter. It might be them but gold shines through the green of her eyes. A bright circle that burns, burns as Regina catches her breath. Burns until it transforms into brown. Green and brown, like scattered gold leaf in water. 

Impossible. Impossible. 

“Your eyes.” Regina feels her heart skipping a beat. 

“What is _it_ about my eyes?” Emma kisses her but Regina lays a hand flush on her chest. 

“They’re different. Why are they different?” Red string para el amarre. Rosemary. The spell she had torn off her notebook. 

“Uh,” Emma tilts her head. “I’ve never really known. Does it matter?” 

Impossible. The impossible girl. Brown and green her eyes will be, heart as golden as a Summer’s eve, she’ll hear my call ring and on a stolen chariot will she be coming.

It can’t be. It can’t be all because of a spell she cast as a desperate child. 

“This is going to sound ridiculous but,” She swallows back and grasps at her composure. “Is your car by any chance stolen?” 

“No...” 

Coincidence then. And whatever magic that flows out of Emma. Regina presses her lips to the underside of her jaw. 

“Well, not technically. It’s kind of a funny story, actually--”

It can’t be. No. No. Regina pulls away from her. They can’t be tied because of red thread. Even if she had once wished it. The whole world stopping because of a spell and a quarter, rubbed in between her fingers. Not another thing to add to her list of wrongdoings. 

“I have to go.” Regina can’t breathe. In this stillness. 

“What?” 

Everything begs Regina to stay when she retrieves her blouse from the floor. When she can’t button it. Emma is wild-eyed on the bed, chest still heaving. Golden in all her details. Impossible and perfect. 

“Regina, wait. I don’t understand,” The green and brown swim together as Emma speaks. “Did I do something wrong?” 

“No. You could never.” She wipes at her eyes and wipes at her eyes. “I’m sorry.” 

* * *

What the fuck. Those are the only words Emma has for tonight. As the roots in her chest curl and uncurl. As the noise inside her rages on. What the fuck. Regina had left and she had crumbled. Suddenly so aware of the emptiness around her. Like she was left gasping for air. Hot all over from where Regina’s hands had been. Where her lips had touched her skin. Emma had gotten into the shower, twisted the cold water tab. Have her skin harden until all she could feel was the water hitting her like pebbles. Because what the fuck. What the fuck had happened. She’d pulled on a sweatshirt and left with it sticking to her back. 

Emma takes a swig from her second beer and bites at her lips to keep from crying. It’s the stupid two-for-one ladies night at the Rabbit Hole again. The bartender keeps giving her pitying looks, as if to say he would listen. Emma only to look away and keep drinking. She had belonged. Everything had fit. From their bodies to the air around them. Goddammit they had made the room shake and the lights flicker. Magic, magic. She can’t name and Regina wouldn’t tell. Emma wants so badly. So badly and the noise makes her bones hurt. All her life has been one of want. Of wishes. No rhyme or reason to it. 

Maybe if she gets drunk enough. Maybe she will go up to the house on the hill and make an ass out of herself. Because Emma is just a mess of broken pieces. No. No. It’s the roughness of those pieces, their sharp ends that want this. Sleep it off. Wake up in the morning and sleep it off some more.

“What’s got you so glum, Swan?” Zelena’s voice asks. 

There is a darkness to her eyes. And her shadow is large behind her. She holds a half finished drink in her hand. A sheen of sweat covers her skin, as if just standing here were an effort. Emma tries to not to look at the skull and bones branded on her arm. Burning red, out for everyone to see. 

“Bad night.” 

“Drink to that.” Zelena knocks back her drink and slides onto the seat beside her. “Didn’t think I would find you here.”

“That makes two of us.” She watches her. Something about Zelena is off. The raspiness of her voice, the way she moves her head when she speaks. 

“Boring little town, isn’t it? I thought I would come out and stretch this body, find some fresh meat. But all I found is you.” 

“Sorry.” Emma can’t be bothered to care if it comes out sarcastic.

“Oh, don’t be offended.” Zelena throws her head back. “I do quite like you, despite the circumstances.” 

She is too tired. Hurting too much for this. Emma takes another pull from her beer and considers it might be time for that sleep and self pity. 

“You know, I think I might call it a night.” She tosses a couple of bills on the bar. 

“What a wet blanket you turned out to be. I always imagined you to be a _lot_ more fun than this.” 

Malice. Emma sees it as clear as day. Circling the dark of her eyes, growing and growing. Like a dark glow around Zelena’s body. It chokes her, squeezes at her lungs. The thing Regina had not wanted to see. Right here in front of her. 

“Zelena?”

She licks her lips and smirks. And drums her fingers on the bar. The rhythm so familiar. Like the memory of a song that haunts her.

“Don’t leave on my account, Swan.” Whoever, _whatever,_ inside her pushes itself off the bar. “I’ll let you sit here with your gloom and I’ll move onto better grounds.”

“What are you going to do there?” Emma readies her fists. 

“Finish a job.” It says with a hum and her chest grows so tight. The voice screams and screams. Emma’s body isn’t responding. Like she has been cursed to sit frozen at the bar. “Farewell and adieu to you, lady.” 

Fuck.

It’s him. Killian Jones, dead but not gone. And all Emma can do is try and get her legs to move. As he walks away in Zelena’s body. She fights it. Whatever it is he did to her. Manages to rock back and forth in the stool as he nears the door. It closes shut and Emma falls back onto the floor, stool crashing next to her. 

Emma sprints towards the door, avoiding the crowds of women and the looks they give her. Pushes the door open, practically falling on her knees on the street. Gone. He’s gone.Shit. Shit. There is no time to think of getting her car. 

So she runs. Up to the house on the hill.

  
  



	8. Chapter 8

Nothing in her will settle. Her body trembles. Magic, fear. Guilt. It all simmers together inside her. Regina lies on her bed, knees up to her chest. All this time it had been her love spell that had tethered her to Emma. It was never supposed to come to be. Rosemary and string and silly little words, they couldn’t have been so binding. Couldn’t have survived two decades. Emma was meant to be impossible. A wish she had made, one Regina did not expect the universe to grant. But here she is. The scream in her head so loud that it makes the cotton of her sheets feel like sand. So tired of her life being one of loss. Regina aches with the knowledge that nothing but loss waits for her still. The red thread had only managed to tangle Emma into its knots. 

Regina hears the front door open, recognizes the click of Zelena’s heels. She cannot face her. Not when half of her family wants to leave because of the poison in the air. In the walls. Her hands shake as she reaches for the water on her nightstand. If this could be slept off. If the poison could only be gone by the time she wakes in the morning. But she will close her eyes and wake up suffocating in it. There is no use in trying to sleep. Regina slips on her robe and thinks of tea and spells that become prayers. Prayers that become spells. It’s the only thing left to do. 

Her door creaks open and she spies Henry’s dark hair peeking in.

“Mom, are you awake?” He whispers.

“Yes, sweetheart.” Regina takes a deep breath and smiles. “What is it--”

Henry rushes in and climbs onto her bed, the way he did when he was younger. Curls next to her and buries his face in the crook of her arm.

“Did you have a bad dream?” She tries to soothe him as she runs her fingers through his hair. 

Her son shakes his head and breathes. In, out. In, out. Terrified. That cold stone drops again. Rolls around. This is what Regina has done to their lives. 

“Carino, you can tell me.” She promises. “Whatever it is.” 

“You know how sometimes you feel someone watching you sleep?” Regina nods as she rubs circles on his back. “I woke up and...and.. The ashes looked like someone had stepped on them. Mom...I think I saw tia Zelena leaving my room.”

Her heart stops. Grows cold, so cold. Regina doesn’t want to believe it. Drunken stupor or not. 

“You’re sure?” 

“Mhmm.” 

“And this was now?” Regina hugs him tighter, not knowing what else to do. 

“Yeah.” 

She thinks of the wildness about Zelena tonight. The way the words had slipped from her tongue. And the poison. El veneno que no la deja respirar. There is only one answer to her problem and Regina has to do it alone. The house might quake, the glass of every window explode. So be it if it has come to this. 

“Henry, I need you to go to Lucy’s room.” Regina tells him with her heart in her throat. “I don’t want you to come looking for me, no matter what. You hear something that scares you, you run and tell your tias. Do you understand me?” 

“But mom…” 

“Henry, do you understand me?” Regina repeats as she lifts his chin. 

He blinks at her before he nods. Her son gives her one final squeeze and then hurries out the door. Doing as he is told. 

In, out. In, out. Up, down. The time has come. To face Zelena. Whatever state she might be in. Regina fastens her robe and heads down the hall. The cold floor sends a shock to her spine. Stiffens her bones and makes this all the more difficult. The scream rages against this, at whatever might wait for her in Zelena’s old bedroom. In, out. Regina knocks on her sister’s door. No response.

“Zelena, we have to talk.” She knocks harder. 

Nothing but a groan.

“ _Now._ I don’t care if you have to pick yourself off the damn floor.” 

Her sister grunts in response and all it does is infuriate her. Regina wiggles the stiff door knob and then bangs on the door. 

“Come in then, love.” A disembodied voice says as the door swings open. 

Fear grips her, squeezes at her. Something evil, something stronger than her. The thing that had so worried her son. Still Regina feels her feet move into her sister’s bedroom. Kept the same since the day she left. Walls covered with college memorabilia and all the places she was supposed to go at eighteen. It isn’t the same at all. The air, it falls heavier on her shoulders. Gone is the scent of Carnations that marked this bedroom. The window is open and the wind twirls, and twirls the white of the curtains. In, out. Regina has to do this. Zelena is sitting at the edge of her bed, a smirk on her lips. 

“Couldn’t resist it, could you?” Her voice deepens with spite. 

Zelena rolls her head around and laughs. Kicks her legs, as if she were thrilled, Gleeful to see her. 

“What are you talking about?” 

“Oh love, don’t tell me you don’t recognize me?” Zelena’s eyes turn darker and her shadow cast by the moon grows larger and larger. 

So large that it reaches Regina’s toes. As if it were the tide that has come for her. And it threatens to pull her in. Sink her with the stone she holds inside herself. Killian Jones. The only appropriate name for the poison.

Fuck. 

It should not be him. Not him, buried under wild flowers. Dirt, red under her nails. Flies, flies. On his milky blue eyes. 

“No, no.” Regina can't move as she watches her sister’s body stand up. “I killed you.” 

“Twice.” He wags Zelena’s finger at her. “Can’t say I enjoyed that. Lucky for me, you left the door open. And I can come and go as I please. Now, your sister does _not_ enjoy that.” 

Regina feels herself stunned into silence. How long? How long had she not known he was taking over Zelena? How could she have not noticed?

He laughs as he paces around the room. Like a newly uncaged animal.

“Not a very good sister, are you? Too busy with your little life. With little pretty blonde things.” He speaks with her mouth and it is so obvious now. “If you had been anything resembling a sister I wouldn’t have picked her at all. I’ve got you to thank for this.” 

“Go to hell.” Regina grits out through her shame. Her feet seem to have melted into the floor. 

“I’ve been.” He makes Zelena’s teeth look whiter. Sharper. “Would you like my personal account or would you like to go there yourself?”

Her body might be frozen but Regina could still make this house quake. Tear it apart if she has to. The bed begins to move, the books on the shelves fall onto each other. And it delights him. So much, he stands there and claps. But in an instant his amusement turns into something much sinister. 

“Parlor tricks.” He moves forward and the door slams shut. His hand is outstretched. Ready to grab at Regina’s throat with a death grip. 

But. Zelena’s body freezes. Inches away. Eyes still moving, darkness only swirling in them. 

“No, you don’t Zee.” He grunts. “You don’t make the rules. Remember?” 

“Zelena, please.” Regina begs even if she doesn’t deserve it. “I know you’re stronger than him.”

“Shut up!” Their voices say in unison. 

“You are not letting him win, me estas escuchando?” In, out. There is hardly any air left in the room.

Zelena’s fingers stretch and unstretch, stuck between two minds. Two wills. Until her body falls back, falls back limp on the bed. And the scream. It’s so loud, so loud that the glass breaks at once. The room seems to be swallowed by the night and everything in it. Zelena convulses on the bed and continues to scream. Her body bends and bends. Beyond its natural limits. The powerlessness spreads across Regina’s chest like white hot shame. 

“Regina?!” Come Sabine and Jacinda’s worried voices. Banging on the door. “REGINA!” 

“It’s my sister!” She yells back. “I can’t get to her!!”

“Can you reach to the door--”

Bang. A loud bang against the door. As if someone had rushed up against it. Another and another. Another and a grey smoke leaves Zelena’s lips with the sharpest of all her screams. A smoke that is slowly materializing into the shape of a man. The one Regina had poisoned dead. 

“Did not know _this_ was an option.” He tells her as Zelena’s body collapses. “Much better than that shell.” 

“You miserable son of a bitch!” If only, if only she could tear him apart. “I’ll put you back in the ground!”

“Believe me, you’ll die trying.” 

Bang. Louder and stronger than before. One that breaks through the door frame. Sudden stillness and Regina feels control over her muscles again. She knows, she always knows when Emma is near.

“Re---what the fuck?!” She says as her fingers wrap themselves around her wrist.

“Swan!” The specter says. “Let’s make it a party! I’m feeling nostalgic.” 

Emma doesn’t reply, only allows her fingers to travel down and find Regina’s. Locks them together. Up, down. Up, down. They tremble together. 

“You, you were the pebble in my shoe. That nuisance who just couldn’t help but figure me out.” 

“It wasn’t hard, you psychotic asshole.” She hisses as she squeezes Regina’s hand. “There was nothing special about you.” 

The apparition’s eyes glow red, his color becomes almost translucent. The colors of fury. 

“You want special? I’ll show you how _special_ I can be!” His voice echoes off the walls, vibrates through Regina’s bones. It’s coming for her, she can feel the malice pointed at her. 

It’s then when Emma lets go of her hand, takes her place before Regina can stop her. He seems taken with the idea of killing them both in one swift stroke. His discolored hand plunges into Emma’s chest. But. He barks out in pain, as if he had been burned by something inside Emma. The apparition lifts up his hand to his face, takes a step back. Two. Three. Shrieks as he becomes ashes. Ashes that get carried out by the wind. 

Regina lays a hand on Emma’s chest, where he had wanted to pull and kill. Up, down. Up, down. In, out. She feels the beat of Emma’s heart. 

Golden heart. So golden it might have saved them all. 

* * *

Screwdriver. Phillip’s head. That’s what Emma needs. She is in Regina’s garage, making a mess of it as she searches for tools. But she wants that image out of her head. The grey color of Jones’s face. His touch. A burn on her chest. The sound of Zelena's screams. The painful way she had cursed when Regina had held her steady in bed as Sabine popped her shoulder back into place. Fuck. Screwdriver. Flathead. It will have to do. 

She pops the hood of the car. The Camaro without a record and Emma had lost in Los Angeles. Her hands move mechanically, search for the VIN number. Strike at it until it cannot be ID’d by anyone looking. Emma can feel the skin under her stretch and burn under her clothes. It’s hard to breathe. It’s hard to breathe. The world spins with ghosts and magic and Emma wishes it would stop. Stop. Wishes until she hears a knock on the door. Her body eases it, as the world finds its footing again. 

Regina. Standing in the doorway, inspecting the discarded tools and pulled drawers. She presses her lips together and exhales. Maybe. Maybe she had been feeling it too.

“How is she?” Emma asks, wiping her hands on her jeans. 

“Asleep.” Regina braves a step closer. “We brewed her something for the pain.” 

“The kids? Are they OK?” Henry and Lucy had been huddled together at the foot of the stairs when Emma had burst through the door. They’d hugged her waist before pointing her up the stairs. 

“Marian came and got them.” She says without the air leaving her chest. “We thought it best, all things considered.” 

“Right, yeah.” 

“What’s going on here?” Regina asks her, her meaning obvious. 

“It’s a hard car to find these days. I...I..scratched off the VIN,” Emma tells her because she doesn’t dare to come out with the right words. “I’ll have to get under it with a power tool to do the chassis number--”

“Emma--”

“I could find someone who would take it. No questions asked. It’s good that you kept it, otherwise--”

“ _Emma_.” Regina takes her hand and squeezes. 

“I just...I needed something to do.” She feels her lips quivering. “Tonight was really fucked up, Regina.” 

There had been many nights that had qualified as fucked up in her life. Screaming and shouting in foster homes. Cold nights of sleeping on park benches. Drinking whatever cheap booze that some stranger offered to keep warm. Emma had been so alone, drifting from one bad place to another. Wanting, always wanting. But nothing ever growing beyond daydreams that were over too quickly.

“I know. I’m sorry it came to this.” Regina’s voice cracks. “Earlier tonight...I didn’t tell you the whole truth.”

Emma swallows back her tears and leans against the car. Regina keeps her hand in hers. Doesn’t look away. It’s that golden brown in her eyes she is watching. In, out. Up, down. Emma can feel her racing pulse against her skin.

“I figured.” 

“Zelena,” Regina’s chest falls unsteadily. “She didn’t think anyone would have believed us and she...she wanted to undo what I did. But there is no way to bring someone back. I knew it was wrong. I felt it and still I pressed on. Because I was afraid of what would happen if I did not.” 

The grief and guilt are palpable in the air. Neither of them know what to do with it. Where too much of the supernatural had happened. Things that do not seem to exist outside this town. The dead and their apparitions. And evil. Evil she could feel in her bones, squeezing at her heart. Emma thumbs the back of Regina's hand, feeling a tremor just beneath her skin. 

“I stole from Sabine’s rituals for it.” Her breath comes out with a shudder. “I don’t expect her to forgive me for that.” 

Emma nods and tries her hand at calming the air around them. Let it fall on them, wrap itself around them. Magic, maybe that is part of her. That she cannot understand, desperately wants to keep unburied. 

“But he’s gone now?” 

“I think so.” Regina unlaces their fingers and averts her eyes from hers. “You might have just chased him away.” 

“There’s something else.” Emma tilts her head so that she looks at her again. “Something you’re holding back from me.” 

The fluorescent light above them shines white on the dark of Regina’s hair. Makes the smallest of smiles look so transparent. Emma knows only to want. Want beyond daydreams.

“I can’t lie to you, did you know that?” Her eyes are brittle. “I hate it.” 

“OK?”

“When I was a girl my mom told me about the gift. The one...the one I haven’t been able to stop. I thought I was so smart,” She laughs and tears break out in the corner of her eyes. “I thought I'd found an ironclad way to keep it from collecting. So I made up my mind and decided to cast a spell. A love spell for a girl I thought couldn’t exist.” 

The beat of Emma’s heart is loud in this quiet, louder when she follows the light and its movements on Regina. The way it falls on the silk of her robe, trickles down to her feet like water.

“But here you are.” 

“You cast a spell for a girl with green and brown eyes and a stolen car?” Emma feels the beginning of a smile on her cheeks.

“And a golden heart,” Regina does not return her smile. “Who could hear me call.” 

Emma follows the trail of her memory. To the place where she first heard the voice. The scream and the noise. The streets of Los Angeles, lost and trying to find her way. A scream in the night. When she had been so desperate and there was nothing. Nothing but that voice. 

“I did. I followed it until I found you.” She whispers and runs a thumb on Regina’s cheek.

But. 

It only makes her eyes keep breaking. As if she were guilty of something unforgivable. Regina shakes her head. In, out. In, out. She breathes. Shudders again and again.

“It isn’t real, Emma. What you feel for me. What I feel, it’s the spell--”

There is that same panicked look in Regina’s eyes, the one that had made her run out of the apartment. Emma reaches for her again, anything to keep her. Because tonight had been fucked up. Defied logic and reason. But she isn’t alone and the night isn’t cold.

“Bullshit. That can’t be true. I _know_ it isn’t.” 

“Why else would I feel so much. So quickly?”

Emma can’t help herself again. Smiling because for the first time in her life. In her whole life of wanting, wanting and not getting, someone finally. Finally wants her. Those roots curl, and curl. Growing out of her chest, past her arms. 

“Could it be that all your spell did was bring me to you?” 

“What if it didn’t? What if it’s clouding your judgement?” Regina shakes all over. “No. I can’t allow this.” 

“Don’t I get a say in this? It’s just you and your final word?”

“There is no telling what is and isn’t real when amarres are involved--”

“ _Regina_ \--” Emma can't remember her voice bending around a name like this. 

“You should go.” 

She might have gone cold. Frozen on the spot, until she broke. If it weren’t for her roots, growing so firm. So firm in her bones, making her stand so strong. 

“I told you I made a wish,” Up, down. In, out. “When I left Phoenix, I made a wish. And I think...I think maybe you’re it. And it isn't because of some spell or the planets aligning or something. I...just want you. Isn’t that enough?”

“Emma, I--”

“But if you want me to go, I’ll go.” 

Regina watches her eyes again. This time with wonder, one Emma is unaccustomed to. It makes the dark of Regina's eyes deeper, richer. New, so new. 

“No, I don’t want you to go.” 

“Good.” Smile, all smiles. 

The space between them gets smaller and smaller. As if it really were the Earth’s magnetism pulling them together. Regina’s careful fingers travel from her hands, up to her chest. To the spot that still feels raw. Emma tries and fails to contain her wince. Regina gives her a halfhearted glare, one that is thinly disguised concern. 

“What’s this?” Her touch is gentle, pulling the collar of her sweatshirt to the side. 

“Jones’s ghost might have left a mark.” Emma hasn’t bothered to look but the air hitting it is enough of confirmation. “It’s OK.” 

“It is _not._ ” Regina tells her as she traces the outline of the burn. 

“Really, it’s fine.”

“Don’t you try that.” She pulls away from Emma’s attempt to bring her closer. “Come with me.” 

That Emma obeys without protest. Takes Regina’s hand when she offers it. Hears her mumble about worrying about the mess in the morning. Her roots curl, and curl, past her arms as they walk through the house. When Emma sets her boots next to the stairs and Regina leads her up, up. To a door Emma had run past to get to Zelena. Her roots reach her ankles then, when Regina opens it. A dimly lit bedroom with grey colored walls. Dark wooden details and a window that looks out into the garden. Regina, Regina. It all screams of her. Emma watches her from the door. Standing at her vanity, mixing and matching bottles, pour their contents into a jar. 

“Sit.” Regina points to the bed. 

Up, down. Up, down. The door closes behind Emma when she reaches the bed. Any other night, any other place. Anyone else would have seemed impossible. But she sits on Regina’s bed and knows this is what it must be like to have home. Want to grow, grow. The sleeves of Regina’s robe fall to her elbows and everything about her glows. Her touch is gentle, the most caring Emma has ever felt. The emotion is too warm and difficult to place. Regina pulls the collar of her sweatshirt aside and winces.

“It’s not that bad.” Emma tries for a smile but doesn’t get it. “Is it?”

“It could be worse,” She concedes quietly. “Your shirt needs to come off.” 

It’s a mirror of tonight but there is no urgency. Just the tired comfort that comes from the end of the day. Or what Emma had always imagined it could be. What seemed so unattainable for someone like her. Belonging and all the related wishes get caught up in her throat when she pulls off her shirt. So bare that the night air hardens her chest and the ache on her skin flares up. Emma glances down to see what it is that has Regina holding her breath. A large and red mark, looking so alive and raw. Stretching from her collarbone to the curve of her breast. 

“Side effects of being an evil ghost repellent, huh?”

“You’re an idiot.” Regina chuckles, her eyes watering. “Can I?” 

Emma nods and straightens her shoulders. Trying to keep that thing at the back of her throat from spilling out. She can barely feel Regina’s fingers on her skin, the scent and the freshness of the ointment permeates the whole of her. Eucalyptus and Chamomile, Emma can taste them on her tongue. The roots grow and grow until she is sure they extend to the whole of this room. Surround the bed and. This could be what people meant by someone blossoming. The thing at the back of her throat spills out and Emma cries. 

“Did I hurt you?” Regina pulls her hand away but covers it with hers. “Emma?”

The words she knows can’t cover everything she feels. The stillness of the night, the curling and blossoming. Belonging here, at the house on the hill. Overlooking the water. Regina, Regina. Emma leans forward and presses her lips against her forehead, it’s the only words she has left. And. Regina understands them. Returns them when she kisses the back of Emma’s hand. 

Breathes. In, out. 

* * *

It’s the quiet sound of the rain against the window that stirs Regina from sleep. Emma. Somehow her arms around her do not come as a surprise. Perhaps it’s the red string and rosemary or just the way they fit. Emma is right, the why should not matter. This, this is more than enough. The stillness inside her, Emma’s breathing against her back. More than silly words and an amarre could have given her. Regina shifts away from Emma, as gently as she can. Golden, all of her details. The rise and fall of her chest. Her bare lips. Regina runs a hand through the gold of her hair. How could she not have known sooner?

“Mhmm.” Emma keeps her eyes closed but finds her all the same. 

“I’m only getting some water.” Regina answers realizing that the question had been unspoken. 

With that Emma nuzzles her empty pillow. How could she not have known sooner? Regina hadn’t been taught to recognize it. Hadn’t been taught to look for it. To think it was something she could have and not lose. Nothing that brought her shame and only made the world for all into place. Que durian, que dirian. Regina wonders and finds that she does not care. Goes down the old stairs breathing in the quiet. The old sounds and creaks of the house as she grabs a clean glass. 

A creak when the water hits the glass. From the old wood of the stairs. As if someone had stepped on it. Up, down. Up, down. Her heart still remembers the earlier hours of tonight. Nothing there, there can’t be. Regina turns to check the sunroom. A creak of the wood behind her. A brush of the wind when all the windows are closed. 

“Surprised to find you here, sis,” Zelena’s voice says from behind. 

Regina catches her breath. Up, down. Up, down. The beat keeps going. She wonders if it marches all the way up the stairs. To Emma, asleep on her bed. Zelena’s hair sticks to her forehead and her arm hangs from the sling they’d improvised. She reminds Regina of mother in this light. When mother closed the doors of her tearoom.

“Are you feeling any better?” She asks, backing away on instinct. 

“Not thanks to you.” It’s like her voice scrapes her throat as it leaves her. “You didn’t think once of leaving your little love nest to come see me, did you?” 

The shadow in her eyes grows and grows. Until it’s in the air and poisons it. Small particles sticking to the insides of her chest, squeezing and squeezing. Regina thinks of screaming. Dead but not gone. Scream, scream. So loud that her skin aches with it. 

“Oh, you’ve caught on quicker this time.” He says in Zelena’s voice and steps closer and closer. “I was hoping for the element of surprise.” 

“I think death helped rot your brain,” Regina says through her teeth. The voice screams and screams. “Though I don’t remember there being much in the first place.” 

He throws Zelena’s head back and laughs. Puts one foot in front of the other. Until her sister’s body is only inches away. If she keeps him talking maybe she can make her escape, go up those stairs and keep everyone safe. 

“I should have tried taking you instead.” Zelena’s good hand grabs her by her wrist. Regina can feel her muscles seizing up as burn spreads through her. He smirks and licks her sister's lips. “Now you’ll have matching marks.” 

“Zelena, are you going to let him do this?” Her eyes well up from the pain but she isn’t about to give him any sort of satisfaction.

“Zee is a little too tired and can’t come to the phone right now,” Her wrist burns hotter as he tightens his grasp on her. “Who is to say she will ever wake up. Or you, for that matter.” 

“Fuck you.” She spits out, tasting the salt of her tears. 

The scream. The scream, it grows muted and suddenly she can wring herself free. In a second Zelena’s body is tackled to the ground. Emma. Emma. And Regina’s good for something red string of a spell. She wrestles with him tossing around inside Zelena. 

“You bitch!” He shouts in a deep voice. “You fucking bitch!” 

“That rope would come in handy right about now!” Emma says over her shoulder.

Up, down. Up, down. Matching the footsteps on the tile. Jacinda and Sabine rushing in. The poison in the air begins to dissipate. Emma holds Zelena’s arms behind her back and manages to push her body up to a wicker chair in the sunroom. Jacinda fastens the rope around him, he nips at the air. Spits. Grunts and barks as they tighten a knot on Zelena’s wrists. 

“This is what happens when you play with shit that isn’t yours.” Sabine says as she draws a circle of salt around the chair. "Leave a big mess to be cleaned up." 

Regina says nothing as she watches him twist and turn in Zelena’s body. Wild eyed and inhuman. Her doing, hers and hers alone. If only she had not drawn that veve on the floor, asked him to return. 

“What about an exorcism?” Jacinda asks as she catches her breath.

“We can do one,” Sabine replies, shifting her eyes to Regina. “But it'll push us to the edge and will hurt like hell.” 

She wishes she could find her tongue. Speak but she can barely nod through the guilt. Fails to take those deep breaths. Afraid of what is to come. 

“We can handle it.” Emma says as she crosses the room. Her hand comes short of lying over the small of her back, her fingers barely grazing the fabric of her nightshirt. 

“It’s not like we have a choice.” Regina finally chokes out. “Do we? It’s that or…” 

Possessions and exorcisms are not hers to understand. But she knows what happens to a body with an infection, with something that takes over every cell. And spreads and spreads. Regina knows parasites that eat life from the inside out. Venom that isn’t sucked out from a wound. Zelena will die if he isn’t pushed out of her body. 

“It won’t come to that.” Sabine’s voice grows softer. “We need to cleanse the house first. Jay?”

“Get the sage? It’s not my first limpia, you know.” 

She shakes her head and follows after her wife. Sage and open windows. Nothing Regina grew up with. Mother had no interest in a house clean of evil. After all she pinched her fingers with the hopes it would come forward. She wonders, just for a moment, if this is something she would have truly done. If this might have been a step too far. Even for mother. 

“You’re hurt.” Emma says as her fingers are careful on the raw skin of Regina’s wrist. 

“He was keen on it.” 

“Kiss it better, won’t you?” He uses Zelena’s lips to smile, roar out in laughter.

It makes her grit her teeth, the sounds coming out of her sister’s body get trapped in her chest. But Emma ignores them. Leads her to the sink to pour cold water over the burn. That shy tenderness that is not so timid anymore is bright out of Emma’s eyes. As she runs up the stairs to fetch her bottles and ointments. Takes direction in the mixing. Applies the Chamomile and Eucalyptus so delicately Regina could call her santera and get away with it. How Emma moves in her kitchen, on barefeet, as if she has always lived here. That tree with roots so deep no one could ever doubt the earth belonged to it. 

They open windows and doors together. Burn sage in all the hidden corners of the house. Regina says her prayers. Recites the names of all the matriarchs who came before her, power. All the power she has running through her. The house is all blue and white smoke when pink begins to bleed onto the night sky. 

“So, uh, does it matter if I’m not…?” Emma asks as she checks the knots on the restraints on Zelena’s body. 

“You must be feeling so inadequate, Swan.” He bites the air near her. “But then again, just another day for you.” 

“Intent.” Regina glares at him. “It’s all magic is.” 

“Witches, witches. Who knew you were real?” 

“ _Shut up.”_ They both hiss at the same time and a pulse of magic hits him in the chest. 

“Don't waste your energy. We haven’t begun yet and he’s a nasty piece of work.” Sabine tells them as she returns with a dozen candles. Dressed in white, hair held together by a scarf. Setting each candle with purpose, making another circle outside the salt. 

Regina kneels next to her, feels the energy radiating off her. She twists the wick of one of the candles and lights them all with her fingertips. It isn’t with displeasure that Regina catches the awe in Emma’s expression. Reflecting off the gold. 

“Are we ready?” Jacinda asks, settling on the floor with a drum between her legs. 

“As ready as we’ll ever be.” 

One last deep breath. In, out. The hum is soft at first, Regina remembers it from when Sabine sang Lucy to sleep. But as it grows louder and louder the drum under Jacinda’s fingers follow the rhythm. Down, up. Down, up. For all their years together this is something they mostly kept to themselves. To those occasional meetings at the Bay. Ones that would leave Sabine both exhausted and ecstatic. The hum grows into a wordless lamentation, clouding her eyes with grey. It’s so different, so different from when Regina had stolen it. 

“Is this it?” He rocks himself back and forth inside Zelena. Still tied to the wicker of the chair. 

Sabine’s lamentation finds its words. Lighting fast on her tongue, her eyes lose all their color. Jacinda palms and fingers never miss a beat. Perfectly in sync, the kind that cannot be practiced. She signals that they follow too. With their hands, their feet. Regina finds the beat, vibrating in her bones. Nothing, nothing like the whispers. Whispers in her blood. Feels the heat of her own skin, the sweat building in her back. 

“You fucking bitch!” He barks out again, bending Zelena’s head back. “Quiet, quiet down!” 

Sabine’s words get louder and louder. It makes the early morning chill feel like a knife running down Regina’s spine. 

“Regina!” Zelena, _Zelena_ cries out her name. “Please! Please come get me!” 

Her sister twists in agonizing pain. It travels to her, the bone breaking bleeding pain. To her chest, threatening to spill it open. Pain, pain she could die from. Regina stops her clapping and moves to step over the candles and salt when Emma keeps her in place. 

“Can’t you see she’s suffering?! I can’t just--” 

“Regina, el diablo es vivo.” Jacinda tells her without skipping a beat.

“He isn’t the devil, he’s just some _jackass_ who refuses to stay dead!” It’s torture, so unbearable. “I have to--!”

“No!” Emma fails to stop her from Regina setting foot inside the circle. “She’s bait!”

Half her body is paralyzed. Zelena still convulses, writhes until ropes and knots loosen. And he is standing up in place. His shadow growing larger and larger. He bares her sister’s teeth, cracks her knuckles and her neck. The drumming gets faster with Sabine’s words and a hand snatches her around the waist. Lifts her just as he rushes towards her. Crashes against an invisible barrier as she and Emma fall to the floor. 

“Fuck.” Emma breathes out against her. 

“Oh love, nearly fell for that one--Regina! Make it stop, make it stop!” Zelena’s back arches and screams and screams. 

To her shame, Regina begins to cry. Cry as Emma still holds her. She hadn’t known. Hadn’t noticed this worm, this evil invading her blood. Taking over her body. And she can’t do anything but make it worse. The screaming quiets down, leaving only Sabine’s singing. Unbroken and still so strong. As she draws a white veve on the tiles, knocks in an order, a rhythm she could have never learned. The guilt keeps her down. Keep her weeping. 

“Hey, hey cara de mono,” Zelena whispers. “You look ugly when you cry, did you know that?”

“Zelena…” Regina sits up, Emma’s hand on her back. “Not as ugly as you.” 

Her sister laughs and shakes her head. The light almost completely gone from her eyes. 

“We really fucked up, didn’t we?”

“It doesn’t matter. We’re fixing it, we’re making you better.” She chokes out, hands itching to run her hands through Zelena’s hair. 

“I’m tired.” Her sister confesses, with a voice so shattered. It makes the fractures in her own nothing in comparison.

“You’re a whirlwind, you pull and take everything in your path.” Up, down. Up, down. Regina's heart won’t stop beating. “What is the world’s worst ex-boyfriend compared to that?” 

Zelena is too weak for a smile. Too weak to do anything but follow Regina with her eyes. 

“I...I don’t have it in me. Let’s face it, my entire life has just been leading up to this.” 

“ _No._ Don’t be stupid.” 

Jacinda’s hands slow, slow when Sabine’s singing becomes a murmur. 

“I was never much of a sister to you anyway.” 

She reaches across the candles and salt to take her hand. Not caring, not caring if it’s just another trap.

“Then _live_ and be my sister.” Regina begs of her as she locks their fingers together.

“Don’t let love blind you from the truth.” Zelena mumbles, this is it. The exact second when her sister gives up.

Up, down. Up, down. In, out. Her fingers are tight, tight around her sister’s. 

“You are not leaving me behind _again_.” She is not losing her. Not losing anyone else ever again. Not to the spirit of one evil man, not to Maria Isabel’s gift. “Zelena...mother was wrong. Love isn’t weakness, it’s strength.” 

Nothing. Nothing. Her sister’s chest goes up, down. So faintly. Regina recites the names of her matriarchs. Calls on God, the God of her father. To intercede. Blessed Sovereign of the Universe, intercede. Intercede, and free her sister. Unbound her from him. Him who holds her captive. The bone splitting pain is back, tearing her apart. Through primordial darkness. To the dead of night. Centuries, centuries ago. Regina sees her so clearly, standing on the shoreline. Maria Isabel has her mother’s profile, that hungry look to her eyes. She shouts curses into the night, cuts her palm bloody. Lets the water and salt wash it away. 

“I’m putting an end to it. To whatever legacy you thought you gave us,” Regina tells her, unaware if Maria Isabel can hear her at all. “We’ve lived in your shadow for too long. It will never take from us again.” 

Maria Isabel looks through her. To what must be the night. Regina recites her prayers again. Intercede, intercede, so that the bond may be broken. No more blood, no more death. No more hearts that stop. Not her sister’s. Not her son’s. Never her sons. Live, live, they will live. In that house overlooking the water. Where the stairs creak. Never wonder when. When the gift would pull them apart. Maria Isabel fades into that primordial darkness and morning is seeping through her open windows. Emma’s arms are around her waist, Sabine's and Jacinda's singing bring Regina's breath back to her. 

Zelena’s fingers lock tighter and tighter around hers. Her body shakes, shakes until the grey shadow of Killian Jones is pushed out. Through the white veve drawn on tile, taking out the flame from each and every candle. Sabine knocks on all sides of the veve. Up, down. Left, right. Swipes it clean from the ground. 

“Gone. He’s gone.” Sabine says as she lies back against Jacinda, voice dripping with exhaustion. Her eyes are shining, leaving no doubt of their success. 

The morning mist falls so light on Regina’s skin, free of his poison. In, out. Emma breathes against her back, kisses her temple. She must feel it too. The weightlessness of today. Of the promise of tomorrow.

“Sickening.” Zelena coughs out. “Haven’t I been through enough?” 

Regina pushes through the candles and salt and wraps her arms around her sister. Frail in her arms but very much alive. All here. 

“Tonta.” She whispers until they both laugh. 


	9. Chapter 9

Emma hates fancy ovens. They have too sensitive temperature calibration and they usually come attached with the worst customers. Glinda, this time around. She has hovered around the kitchen talking about her burgeoning cupcake business and if Emma could please. Please be careful with her baby. She bites her tongue to keep from telling Glinda that she could have probably afforded the agency repair person. But a job is a job. A good clean job. No need for flyers or word of mouth anymore. People nod as she passes them by. Know her orders, and the schedules she keeps.

Her phone buzzes in her back-pocket. No need to check, to wonder who it could be. The whole of Emma knows when Regina is near. She washes her hands and tells Glinda she is taking lunch before rushing out the door. 

“I was beginning to think she had you trapped.” 

One year later and the whole world still stops for Regina. Even the wind in her hair. That space where belonging and all the related wishes used to be only has thick and sturdy roots. Blossoms grow all over her or so everyone at the house says. 

“And force feeding me underbaked and burnt cupcakes? Not gonna lie, that seems likely to happen.” Emma says as she takes her lunch bag from Regina. 

“What if I pay you double to discreetly and completely ruin her oven?” She takes Emma’s hand as they walk towards a nearby bench. “The community would thank you.” 

“ Regina …” 

“What? I can afford you.” For the smirk on her face Emma might just do it. 

“That you can.” She bites her lip before breaking out into a smile. 

It’s a lamb and fries today. They do lunch every day, no matter where Emma might be in town. Zelena jokes about Regina’s spell really tying them together as she gags and rolls her eyes. But she gets the feeling she is getting special treatment today, judging by the third container that must be dessert. 

“I’m supposed to be sly in asking you this,” Regina says as she takes a bite from a fry. “But Henry and Lucy have been arguing about it non-stop.” 

“Yeah?” 

“Blackout Forest cake or cheesecake?” She shakes her head in mock disapproval. “They’ve appointed themselves your birthday committee and take the job very seriously.” 

Emma must be blooming again. Her birthday used to come and go. A beer in between her hands and a single cupcake. Now. Now it’s a house on the hill. Overlooking the sea, bursting with life. 

“Uuuh, both?” 

Regina smiles in that way that has become so familiar but never ceases to make still the air around them. 

“I’ll let the committee know their wish has been granted.” 

* * *

Three o’clock on Friday. The kids spend all day counting down the hours to that last bell, more than any other kid in school. It was one of the first things Emma learned when she moved her two boxes into the house. Lucy and Henry rush through their breakfast, through their goodbyes in hopes that three o’clock will come sooner. It’s only natural. With some afternoon snack left by Sabine and Jacinda and the promise of no homework and stories after dinner. A dream, a dream Emma had many times as a girl. One she is happy is real for them. One she gets to be a part of. With their walks to the store on Friday afternoons. 

“Emma!” Henry comes running to greet her. Gives her a one-armed hug as Lucy comes running after. “Guess what?”

“I get to tell her.” Lucy says as she smack his arm.

“Ugh. Fine.” He says with an eye roll that is distinctly Mills. 

“We got an A on the math quiz!” She says pulling out a sheet for her to see. 

“See? I told you. Easy stuff.” 

Emma thinks she is preening with pride more than they are. She had made up little stick figure stories to break down the practice problems and drawn all over their homework as Regina watched so amused as she cut cucumbers for dinner. To be part of their little victories, that is something she had never counted on. 

“I can’t wait until I’m an adult and never need math again.” Henry says as they walk towards Main Street. 

“Not even an A will change your mind, huh?”

“Just because I’m good at it doesn’t mean I like it, Emma.” He says it so flatly, so seriously that she has to laugh. And see how they both take offense at that. 

“Got news for you buds, how do you think your moms come up with all those recipes? Soap or beignets?”

“Oh no.” They both whine. 

“Sorry.” Emma laughs as she looks both ways before crossing. 

“What if we just write stories? We don’t need math for that .” Lucy points out as they near the store. 

“You do if you don’t want to be scammed when you sell them.” She ruffles their hair and can’t believe how lucky she is. Even when they both glare at her for destroying their dream of a math-free adulthood. 

Henry pushes the door open and runs to greet Marian and tell her about their math quiz. Marian smiles and says something about a good job before calling for Regina. 

“Hey Emma,” Marian kisses her cheek. “Tomorrow’s the big day.” 

One year later and Emma still takes a second or two to believe it. That all of them know and care about her birthday. 

“Well, I don’t know about big…’

“Please, the way your birthday committee is planning things, it’s bound to be the biggest blowout this town ever saw.” Marian says never breaking her smile. She glances at the kids and then opens her mouth, as if she were going to keep talking. 

“Shhhh!!”

“ Tia don’t spoil it!” 

“I’m not!” Marian puts her hands on her waist. “I haven’t even told her about the cotton candy!”

“Stop it!” Henry says with his fingers stuck in his hair. The truest act of his desperation, made worse by Marian's act. 

“What’s all this noise about?” Regina asks as she emerges from the back room, purse already on her arm. 

The familiarity of the scene, the moment, is not lost on her. Curl, curl. It's all her roots and the blossoms know how to do when she looks at them all.

“Marian’s selling the kids out.” Emma says unable to keep the laughter from her voice.

“Oh, that.” Regina takes it in stride as she kisses her son and niece hello. “I suppose if the cat is out of the bag..”

“MOM!” Henry furrows his brow, as if that were any sort of warning. 

“We’re just teasing you, carino.” Regina smiles in that world-stopping way before she loops her arm with hers. 

“I wasn’t. I was hundred percent ready to tell Emma about the--”

“We are leaving!” Lucy announces as she takes Henry by the wrist and marches out the door. 

They both stare at them through the glass. So sternly and putting their foot down. Tapping on their wrists, signaling that they have to go. Now.

“See you tomorrow?” Emma asks with her chest about to burst. Because this is a question she gets to ask now. 

“Of course. Seven sharp.” Marian grins, glad to answer the question. “The little sergeants there have me on ice duty too.” 

* * *

It’s the breeze that wakes her up. Early in the morning, when the sky is pink. Regina’s arm is lying across her stomach. The world is quiet, like it has been for a while now. Emma is happy to lie here, under the cotton sheets. The ones with the ridiculous thread count. On the pillows Regina has her fluff up every morning. Everything smells of jasmine and Emma can’t help but laugh about it. Jasmine and that first day at the shop. A year and some months ago. 

“What’s so funny?” Regina mutters, her eyes still closed. 

“Just thinking about you.” 

“Hmmm.” She shifts closer, lips grazing the back of her neck. “What is so funny about me?”

“You insulted me when we first met. I was trying to flirt.”

“Badly,” Regina's hand finds its way under her tank top. “And if I remember correctly, you started it.” 

“You said I had dry skin.” Emma snorts a little too hard. "That does not count as me starting anything." 

“You won’t be laughing when I’m through with you.” She knows, without looking, that Regina must have arched an eyebrow. 

“Really?” Emma runs her fingers on her knuckles.

“It is your birthday, after all.” Her hand travels down to her navel. Past it. To the elastic of her shorts. “This is a serious matter.” 

“Is it?” She says with her heart racing. Up, down. Up, down. "Wanna show me how serious it is? To stop me from laughing?"

“Is that a challenge?” Regina kisses her bare shoulder. Follows her collarbone up to her jaw. 

“Maybe.” Up, down. Emma might not make it to her party with the things that Regina is whispering against her skin. 

“You’ll lose, darling.” Her fingers tease and tease. Not yet curling, just roaming with purpose. Never staying somewhere for too long. 

Because it’s her birthday Emma takes her hand and flips them over. Laughs as she does it too. Feeling how even the Sun could stop for them. Gone past, so much further than just the flickering lights. 

“What? I don’t like losing.” 

“You’re impossible.” 

Emma kisses her just when Regina’s nails find that spot in her thigh. A touch that is barely there but drives her crazy. Makes the gold in her eyes burn brighter. That. That Regina loves watching. Says it swims in her eyes. Explodes, explodes just when they do. It’s no different today. When sweat builds up and her arms cave. And Emma laughs against the dampness of Regina’s hair. Regina says something about rosemary and Emma being a bad winner, mumbled whispers. Up, down. The world so still with the rise and fall of their chests. The breeze that had awakened Emma rocking her back to sleep. With the sky so blue. 

A loud knock on their door. And another, and another. 

“You two better be decent!” Zelena says with another knock. And another. “I did not order exposure for today!”

“Deja de joder por la puta.” Regina says finding the energy to toss a cushion at the door. 

“And this is the thanks I get for warning you that your room is about to be invaded by some over-eager children.”

They rush to find lost shorts and robes. Curse for almost slipping on their way back to bed. Just in time for the door to burst open, yellow balloons making their grand entrance. 

“‘Happy birthday Emma!” Lucy and Henry say in a practiced sing song. In superhero PJs and more awake than anyone in this room. They climb onto the bed and practically tackle her. 

One year later and some months later and they all can’t stop laughing. 

* * *

There are two great, big cakes in front of her. Because they do not half-ass anything in this house, Jacinda had told her. Not the basketfuls of fried chicken with that lemon honey sauce Emma had called her favorite once. Not the steaming hot rice or the coconut bread. Henry and Lucy’s storybook about an impossible girl. Who grew up to fix broken clocks and fight ghosts. Yellow and green cotton candy in a bag. Big, bigger than Emma could have ever thought possible. 

Fourteen candles on the chocolate cake and fifteen on the cheesecake. All unlit. Emma takes one deep breath as she looks at the scene around the table. Regina watching her, watching the gold in her becoming brown. The night so quiet and still if not for the shuffling and bickering of different pairs of people. 

“Ay, who was supposed to get the matches?” Jacinda asks, rubbing her temples. “I swear I put it on someone’s list.” 

“Don’t look at me.” Zelena says. “I got the booze.” 

“We can’t not have matches in this house--” Sabine is already moving away to go in search of them. “House full of priestesses, santeras and everything in between.” 

“Hey, I got this.” Emma tells them and winks at Regina. Because this is one of the things she has mastered. Mostly in the middle of the night, half submerged in their bath. 

She blows on the unlit candles until flames spring up from each and every wick. 

“Ugh. Nobody likes a show-off, Swan.” Zelena rolls her eyes at her as she gets nudged in the ribs by Henry. “But it is your birthday, so I suppose it’s allowed.” 

They sing happy birthday off tune. Cannot agree on what exactly to call her when it comes to say her name. Some of them drift into a Spanish song about wanting cake and Coca Cola too until they burst out in laughter. Henry and Lucy blow on her candles. It’s only fair. Belonging and all the related wishes have come true. Emma feels like one big trunk because of it. With her body so heavy and full, capable of holding them all. In those spaces where there had only been an empty sort of want. 

With their heavy and full bodies they move to the sunroom. Emma’s eyelids close as Regina rakes her nails through her hair. Her voice is a murmur but she still knows when to laugh. From Jacinda's teasing, Sabine's pretend exasperation. Marian's casual jokes. Knows when she is being spoken to, when Regina must be rolling her eyes. Feels her tongue rolling around curses. Impossible things before. Before she had seen Regina on that pier. And the world had stopped. Her roots curl and curl, like she has always been here. Emma will always be here. 

“How about a card reading?” Jacinda pokes her knee. “Birthdays are good time for that.” 

“Jay, the only thing in Emma’s near future is a food coma,” Sabine says. “Look at her.” 

“Now, that is definitely the dopiest she has ever looked.” Zelena says with a toothless bite. “True love is such an embarrassing shade."

Regina’s hand never stills, the tips of her fingers caressing her brow before returning to her hair. 

“You should try it sometime.” Emma mumbles back. “You might like it.” 

“Ugh, don’t be gross.” 

Laughter stays in Emma’s chest as she dozes off on Regina’s lap. Seeing gold behind her closed eyes. 

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [Purisima [Fanart]](https://archiveofourown.org/works/25747927) by [coffeesometime](https://archiveofourown.org/users/coffeesometime/pseuds/coffeesometime)




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